Thousands of fetuses found in Illinois home to be buried in Indiana, officials say

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More than 2,400 fetuses found last year in the Illinois home of one of the Midwest's most prolific abortion doctors will be buried in Indiana Wednesday, officials said.

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill will preside over the mass burial at Southlawn Cemetery in South Bend and later give an update on the investigation into Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, and whether anyone assisted him in moving the remains to his home in Crete, Ill.

FILE: Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill speaks during a news conference in South Bend, Ind., about the fetal remains found at the home of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, an abortion provider who died Sept. 3, 2019.  (South Bend Tribune via AP)

The service comes five months after relatives sorting through Klopfer's belongings after his Sept. 3, 2019, death came across 2,246 sets of preserved fetal remains stacked floor to ceiling in his garage. Later, 165 more were found in the trunk of a car at a business where Klopfer kept several vehicles.

Klopfer, who was 79, performed tens of thousands of abortions over 40 years, mainly in Indiana and often as the only abortion doctor serving South Bend, Gary and Fort Wayne.

He was a reviled figure among anti-abortion activists, who held weekly demonstrations outside his clinics, sometimes blocking entryways.

Hill, a Republican seeking a second term as attorney general, has put his defense of state laws tightening abortion restrictions at the forefront of his campaign for another term. Abortion opponents heralded Hill's role in making the burial happen.

This Sept. 17, 2014, file photo shows Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, one of the Midwest's most prolific abortion doctors, days after he died.  (South Bend Tribune via AP)

"I'm so grateful that, finally, the bodies of these little boys and girls will be treated with the dignity they deserved," said Cathie Humbarger, who heads Right to Life in northeast Indiana.

Indiana is one of just a few states with a law mandating burial or cremation of fetal remains after abortions. The law did not take immediate effect because of court challenges after then-Gov. Mike Pence signed it into law in 2016. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May upheld the law.

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Planned Parenthood officials have long expressed concerns that such laws will reduce women's access to abortion by increasing costs to clinics.

Klopfer's career started unraveling in the early 2000s with a flurry of complaints, including that he performed an abortion on a 10-year-old girl raped by her uncle and did not notify law enforcement.

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His career effectively ended in 2016, when authorities suspended his medical license, citing, among other things, shoddy post-op monitoring of his patients. Klopfer complained that conservative state officials were in cahoots with anti-abortion groups to close him down.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.