Doctor who kept fetuses leaves one last shock

CHICAGO — Dr. Ulrich Klopfer competed so avidly in the 1970s to perform the most abortions each day at a Chicago clinic that it was said he would set his coffee aside, jump to his feet in the break room and rush to the operating table whenever his chief rival in the macabre derby walked by.

That early emphasis on speed helped him go on to perform at least 50,000 abortions over the next 40 years, making him one of the Midwest’s most prolific abortion doctors and a target of weekly protests at his primary clinics in Gary, South Bend and Fort Wayne, Ind.

The rancor he generated in life only deepened after his death at 79 last month, when 2,246 sets of preserved fetal remains were discovered stacked floor to ceiling in a garage at his suburban Chicago home.

Weeks later, 165 more sets were found in the trunk of a Mercedes-Benz at a business where Klopfer kept several cars.

One Indiana lawmaker pronounced Klopfer a “monster.” Anti-abortion legislators in Congress promptly introduced the Dignity for Aborted Children Act, which would require burial of aborted fetuses nationwide. The White House called for a thorough investigation.

There is no indication Klopfer told others about his grim collection, including his wife. Investigators and others have been scrutinizing his past for clues and have been left to speculate.

Was it a hoarding disorder? Was he was trying to save disposal costs as he racked up legal bills suing and being sued by abortion opponents? Was he hoping to torment his enemies from beyond the grave?

Some who knew him recall the German-born Klopfer as a lonely, enigmatic figure. Unprompted, he would often tell how he took shelter as a 4-yearold when Allied planes bombed his hometown of Dresden during World War II. He would describe emerging three days later with buildings smoldering around him, bodies in the rubble.

When anti-abortion physician Geoffrey Cly met Klopfer in 2008 to discuss concerns that Klopfer’s procedures were endangering patients’ health, Klopfer immediately brought up the 1945 raids on Dresden, in which some 25,000 people died.

“How is the suffering from the bombing by the Americans in Dresden any different than the suffering of women by unwanted babies?” Cly recalled Klopfer saying.

Cly added: “I thought his abortions, how he kept the fetuses, might be unconscious revenge for the bombings.”

News reports about Klopfer going back decades portray him as combative, quick to give the finger to protesters. He spoke emphatically about ensuring women had access to abortion in Indiana, which has some of the nation’s toughest restrictions on the procedure.

He once told a reporter about the abortion debate: “If men got pregnant and women didn’t, this wouldn’t be a discussion.”

For long stretches, Klopfer was the only abortion doctor in the Indiana cities where he had clinics.

Klopfer began performing abortions months after the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. He was doing 3,500 annually by 1993, he told the Chicago Tribune that year.

Other abortion doctors kept low profiles. Not Klopfer.

During protests at his clinics in 1993, police admonished him for shoving protesters. News reports at the time said officers rejected his suggestion they pour acid in protesters’ eyes.

He was constantly embattled. One night in 1995, someone shot at his car in Indiana as he drove home, he told police. An armed guard started accompanying him to and from his clinics.

“Am I concerned? Yes. Am I going to change? No,” Klopfer told the Associated Press.