A group of House Republicans called for an investigation on Wednesday into the deaths of five Washington babies believed to be victims of infanticide.

Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Bob Good (R-VA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Pat Fallon (R-TX), and Chris Smith (R-NJ) were flanked by leaders from multiple anti-abortion organizations outside the Capitol as they called on Congress to launch its own investigation into the “D.C. Five,” saying the city Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Department of Justice have been attempting a “cover-up.”

“The DOJ has directed the D.C. medical examiner to destroy the remains of the bodies of the D.C. Five,” said Good, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, highlighting that members of Congress have led previous calls to investigate. “These babies before that never had anyone to advocate for them, and the very law enforcement tasked with protecting the most vulnerable in our society that has become complicit in covering up the cold-blooded murder of these precious lives.”

The bodies were discovered nearly two years ago by members of the advocacy group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

The demand for a congressional investigation on Wednesday came after a coalition of concerned groups called on Congress last week to intervene amid reports that the Washington medical examiner was planning to destroy the remains without any autopsy or investigation on Friday. The examiner’s office was reportedly advised by the Biden Justice Department to get rid of the bodies.

While the medical examiner decided not to dispose of the bodies on Friday, the future of the case remains uncertain. Lawmakers and advocacy groups are seeking a medical determination on the causes of death, under the suspicion that district abortionist Cesare Santangelo of the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Foggy Bottom performed partial-birth abortions, which is illegal under federal law.

“These are murderers. This really, honestly, doesn’t have anything to do with abortion. This is about murders,” Fallon said. Biggs added that, given what evidence is available, “these children appear to have likely suffered through the procedure of partial-birth abortion.”

Partial-birth abortion is a procedure in which a live baby is delivered past the head, or past the navel in a breech birth, and the infant’s skull is either crushed or the brain is removed by suction. The procedure was made illegal in the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.

Many of the concerned parties believe Santangelo, a prominent late-term abortionist in the city, violated the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act or the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. Their suspicions cannot be confirmed without autopsies and a more thorough investigation, but the D.C. and federal governments appear to be putting up significant roadblocks.

Smith, co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, compared Santangelo to convicted serial killer abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who murdered hundreds of babies born alive, according to staff at his Philadelphia clinic.

“There are Kermit Gosnells all over America: predators, child abusers, exploiters of women,” Smith said. “Will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how and how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies?”

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SBA Pro-Life America Legislative Director Jamie Dangers, who also spoke at the press conference, told the Washington Examiner, “These children are the faces of the pro-abortion Left’s ‘reproductive freedom.’ As a country, we cannot turn a blind eye to these barbaric abortions happening in our nation’s capital, where abortions are unlimited through all nine months, and across the country.”

“These children should be vibrant 2-year-olds, but instead, they are lying in a morgue waiting for justice,” she said.