- An anti-abortion activist claimed aborted fetuses are burnt to generate power in Washington DC.
- Insider found no evidence to substantiate the claim.
An anti-abortion activist in congressional testimony claimed without evidence that Washington DC's electricity is generated by burning aborted fetuses.
Catherine Glenn Foster, president of the Americans United for Life campaign group, was summoned by Republicans as an expert witness during a House judiciary committee meeting Wednesday on access to abortion.
The hearing was held in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
"Bodies [are] thrown in medical waste bins, and in places like Washington, DC, burned to power the lights of the cities' homes and streets," Foster told the committee.
—Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) May 19, 2022
"Let that image sink in with you for a moment," she continued. "The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators, think of what we're doing to ourselves so callously and so numbly."
According to the DC Policy Center, a non-partisan think tank, 93% of energy in the nation's capital is generated by burning gas, or at power stations, and the other 7% though renewable sources.
Insider has contacted the DC Department of Energy and Environment and the health department for comment.
DC is not among the parts of the US, including Indiana and Ohio, that have passed bills requiring aborted fetuses to be given burials or cremations, and they are disposed of as medical waste.
The only reference Insider has found to a company allegedly burning fetuses to generate power is in 2014, when county authorities in Oregon ordered an incinerator to stop burning medical waste to make power over concerns it could include aborted fetuses from British Columbia, Canada.
In response to a request for evidence supporting Foster's claim, a spokesman for Americans United for Life referenced the Oregon case but provided no proof that DC authorities used aborted fetuses for energy generation.
"Even NBC News, which we presume is not a purveyor of disinformation, has reported on previous instances of this practice, which reported that 'aborted fetuses were routinely burned at an incinerator in Oregon that used medical waste to generate electricity,'" said the spokesman.
"Human victims of abortion are treated as medical waste by abortion businesses and medical waste is routinely incinerated as part of 'waste-to-energy' programs. Connect the dots."
In April, police found five aborted fetuses in the Washington DC apartment of an anti-abortion activist. She claimed to have obtained the fetuses from a worker at Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services, who was transporting them for incineration. But the company denied in a statement to The Washinton Post that it transported fetuses for incineration.
Anti-abortion groups have long been accused of promoting disinformation and misleading claims about abortion as part of their decades long campaign to restrict access to abortion.