A young couple is looking for answers after claiming their baby girl, Clementine, was born alive during an abortion procedure at a New Jersey clinic and then taken for organ harvesting without their full understanding or consent.
Their story is told in a new documentary from the Center for Medical Progress called What Happened to Clementine? The film features interviews with Clementine’s father, Tommy Kearns, and her mother, who has chosen to remain anonymous.
According to the documentary, Clementine was about five months old and still had a heartbeat when the abortion process began. Doctors who reviewed the medical records say the clinic did not give the injection that is commonly used to end a baby’s life before a second-trimester abortion.
Instead, Clementine’s mother was given medication to induce labor. The documentary alleges that Clementine may have been delivered intact rather than removed through a standard abortion procedure.
Now, more than two years later, her parents say they still do not know exactly what happened to their daughter.
Kearns says the uncertainty has been heartbreaking.
“If Clementine’s scalp is growing on the back of a lab rat, then the question is not scientific. It is about our child,” Kearns told the Daily Caller. “How long is her hair? What color is her hair? She is not a tissue sample, she is a person.”
Another source shared how Clementine’s parents ended up at the clinic in the first place.
Tommy and Clementine’s mother had allegedly spent months arguing about whether to continue the pregnancy. Tommy wanted to keep their daughter and repeatedly promised that he would support both mother and baby.
Then, while Tommy was away dealing with a family emergency in another state, Clementine’s mother called the Cherry Hill clinic to ask questions about abortion. According to the documentary, she was struggling financially and says she had no plans to schedule an abortion because she couldn’t afford one.
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However, she claims clinic staff encouraged her to come in anyway and told her the appointment could be free.
The documentary also alleges that when she arrived, she informed staff that she was under the influence of marijuana. Despite this, the abortion process moved forward.
Later, while she was already in labor and scared about what was happening, Clementine’s mother says she was asked to sign paperwork related to donating her baby’s organs and tissue for research. She says she did not fully understand what she was signing at the time.
“I was afraid I was going to die. I didn’t know what was going to happen if I didn’t sign it for the surgery. I felt like I had no choice. I was trusting them, so I signed it … I did not read that. I just signed it, because what else was I supposed to do?” Clementine’s mother said in the documentary.
The case has raised serious concerns among Pro-Life advocates about late-term abortions and the use of aborted babies’ organs and tissues for research.
David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, says the case is unlike any he has seen before.
“This is the first case that I’m aware of in over 10 years of looking at this, where the actual parents of a child who was killed for fetal organ harvesting have come forward relatively quickly after this all happened and said, ‘We feel we were lied to.’ This is a suspected true crime murder case about a baby that was born alive, who would have protectable civil rights, and was killed by organ harvesting in a taxpayer-funded abortion clinic,” Daleiden told the Daily Caller.
He believes the case deserves a full investigation to determine exactly what happened to Clementine and whether any laws protecting babies born alive were violated.
The clinic at the center of the allegations has also faced problems with state regulators. Earlier this year, New Jersey health officials cited the facility for deficiencies related to nursing services and infection-control practices before later lifting corrective orders after the clinic addressed the issues.
Many questions about Clementine’s case remain unanswered. But for many Pro-Life Americans, her story is a heartbreaking reminder that every unborn baby is a unique human life worthy of dignity, protection, and love.
As Clementine’s parents continue searching for answers, they hope the truth about what happened to their daughter will finally come to light.
Join us in praying that mothers and fathers around the world will choose Life and reject abortion, so that every child is protected and stories like Clementine’s never happen again.
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