An American Life League fact sheet
The truth behind the selling of baby body parts
By Judie Brown
A great deal of news coverage and commentary has erupted over the past few weeks dealing with the very skewed issue of the sale and marketing of “baby body parts.” The main concern seems to center on the going price of such parts. But somewhere in the rush to expose the profiteering and the ghastly business of harvesting fresh organs from babies not yet fully dead from acts of abortion, we seem to have lost our way.
When pro-lifers examine the question of harvesting the bodies of tiny human beings who are aborted, we are addressing all acts of abortion from conception until birth. This is not clear in the current debate — deliberately so, as you will see.
Additionally, many are under the impression that the government really does not allow such atrocities. This, too, is false.
Here is a list of facts that may help you better achieve a full understanding of what is really at stake and how long this ghastly business has been operating in our nation:
- The U. S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade/ Doe v. Bolton on January 22, 1973. In that decision the Court struck down every state law dealing with restricting abortion and ruled that a woman had a right to decide, with her doctor, whether or not she would abort her child.
- The Court never ruled that the result of the abortion had to be a dead baby, much to the joy of the eugenic-biomedical establishment.
- In 1974, the Federal Food and Drug Administration approved an Upjohn Pharmaceutical product called Prostin F2 Alpha, which was touted as a chemical that would cause an abortion but not threaten the health or life of the mother as previous abortion techniques had. However, as Suzanne Rini points out in the definitive “Beyond Abortion,” a live baby resulted during such abortions, causing two physicians to comment in a medical journal article:
The occasional delivery of a fetus with a heartbeat suggests that fetal death usually occurs close to the time of abortion . . . Therefore, it seems likely that the fetal tissues so obtained might be suitable for organ transplants, for growing and attenuating viruses for vaccines and for basic research. The report on second-trimester [Prostin F1 Alpha] abortions demonstrates that fetal tissues are viable and that representative enzymes are not altered significantly by the abortion technique. (From an article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1974, cited in Beyond Abortion) - The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act was originally passed in 1968, and has been amended and most recently revised in 1987. A form of this law has been adopted by all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and a provision of that law allows women who choose abortion to donate “fetal remains” (e.g. human babies whole, organs, tissues or cells).
- In 1981, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an expose by Liz Jeffries, “The Dreaded Complication,” which dealt with abortions resulting in live births. The article’s focus was on the fact that such an outcome was not desirable, but current news coverage concentrating on the “baby body parts industry” only reminds us that clearly such an outcome is desirable for clinical research and experimentation.
- In 1988 when the alleged “moratorium” was placed on research and experimentation using the bodies of nearly dead or dead persons resulting from acts of abortion, the law prohibiting such research ONLY applied in a very narrow set of circumstances. For example, a woman could only be approached to “donate” her baby once she had decided to abort the baby. And, only “reasonable payments” for services were permitted. It is obvious that such “regulations” did little to halt the macabre business of buying and selling fetal body parts (and whole embryonic babies) for profit.
- The Los Angeles Times (3/9/00) reports that “fetal-tissue research is hardly new,” since Jonas Salk relied on it for the development of the polio vaccine. The National Institutes of Health spent, just last year, $18.6 million on research projects that used fetal tissue and $1.8 on research involving fetal tissue transplantation.
Has there ever been a time since the Roe and Doe Supreme Court decisions when such ghoulish practices as those currently being debated have ever really been illegal?
No!
ACTION ITEMS:
If this information makes you wonder why Congress is spending time holding hearings to question how much money companies are making by selling baby limbs, tissue and organs, then here is what you can do today:
- Write or call your members of Congress and request that each use the Freedom of Information Act to make the following requests from the National Institutes of Health:
Provide a list of every single recipient of funding currently involved in supplying or using aborted babies or embryonic babies.Ask NIH to acquire, from each grantee, a notarized statement attesting to where they obtained the material, how much was paid, which abortion providers were involved, and how arrangements were handled. In other words, was a third party involved as well? - Ask your Congressman and your Senators to request oversight hearings for the express purpose of investigating the involvement of the National Institutes of Health in the ongoing research and experimentation involving the remains of children killed by abortion or those children who survived abortion long enough to allow others to rob them of their vital organs. It is clear that the NIH is aware of such trafficking in human body parts in the private sector as well as their own.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Chairman of the Commerce Committee is Congressman Tom Bliley (R-Va.), House Commerce Committee, 2049 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515 or call (202) 225-2927 or e-mail: “>.In the U.S. Senate, the Chairman of the Commerce Committee is Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), Senate Commerce Committee, 241 Russell Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510, (202) 224-5115 or e-mail: “>. - Clearly, the ultimate solution to this travesty is an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which recognizes every person as a human being from his beginning: conception (fertilization).
Do your elected officials agree? If not, isn’t it time pro-lifers elected people who did? The smell of the gas chambers cannot be far off.
God, give us the strength to do battle with the forces of death.
For further reading:
Beyond Abortion, by Suzanne Rini, Tan Books.
Recycling Babies, by Judie Brown, American Life League.
A March of Dimes Primer — The A-Z of Eugenic Killing, Randy Engel; also available in hard copy from the U.S. Coalition for Life, P.O. Box 315, Export, PA 15632. Note that this report documents the March of Dimes (MOD) underground at Yale-New Haven.