Fight raging over baby part sales

Editor's note: This is WorldNetDaily's third and final exclusive
report on the rapidly growing business of selling baby body parts.
Part 1
exposed the legal loophole that has allowed companies to circumvent the
federal law prohibiting the sale of fetal tissue. In Part 2,
a whistleblower formerly employed by a fetal tissue wholesaler claimed
that late-term abortions, partial-birth abortions, and even live births
were routine at the abortion clinic in which she worked -- all in the
pursuit of greater profits from the resale of intact baby body
parts.

The sale of baby body parts -- a "ticking time bomb," in the words of
one prominent bioethicist -- promises to be an important issue in the
next Congress, in light of recent revelations of the ghoulish new growth
industry.

Condemning the fact that "a market has developed in the trafficking
of baby body parts," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R.-Colo., is hailing passage of
House Joint Resolution 350, a proposal urging Congress to conduct
hearings on the trafficking in aborted baby tissues.

While critics like California Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman condemned
the resolution, accusing the Republican leadership of "kowtowing to its
pro-life right-wing with misleading and sensationalist rhetoric,"
Tancredo points out that "this practice has been outlawed for years."

The problem, said Tancredo, is that "private companies, acting as
middlemen between abortion clinics and research facilities, have
apparently found a way to profit in this trade."

HJR 350, approved by the House on Nov. 9, says in part: "That it is
the sense of the House of Representatives that the Congress should
exercise oversight responsibilities and conduct hearings, and take
appropriate steps if necessary, concerning private companies that are
involved in the trafficking of baby body parts for profit."

Typical congressional comments from the HJR 350 debate included:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.: "The proponents of this resolution are
attempting to corrupt medical research with the politics of abortion.
... The resolution is totally misleading, and that may in fact be its
real purpose. Sale of body parts for profit, the resolution talks about.
No one is going out selling body parts, arms, or legs for any purpose."

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.: "The House has not addressed this issue
since 1993, when the NIH Revitalization Act was passed by this body. At
that time, many of us were deeply concerned, and expressed it on this
floor, that research using the shattered bodies of aborted babies could
quickly lead to a greater number of abortions, particularly if the
demand for their body parts grew among researchers. Those concerns
appear to have been well-founded."

In late October, Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., introduced an amendment to
the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act to require the disclosure of baby
body part donations or sales from abortion clinics to researchers.
Although his amendment was defeated 46 to 51, Smith plans to reintroduce
his amendment as a stand-alone bill in the next session of Congress.

Bioethical debate raging

Predictably, pro-life groups are universally opposed to the use of
fetal tissues from aborted babies. Focus on the Family, for example, has
issued a position statement on its opposition to both human embryo
research and fetal experimentation.

Focus "adamantly opposes the use of aborted babies for fetal tissue
research. We regard it as unconscionable that unborn life is destroyed
(or created) and used for purposes of scientific experimentation."

The statement also notes, "... we reject the premise that the use of
aborted babies in such research is defensible on the basis that it may
yield scientific breakthroughs to aid the living. This is a morally
bankrupt rationalization of abortion. Indeed, we devalue all humanity
when we prey on those least able to defend themselves for the supposed
benefit of others."

Also of concern to Focus on the Family is the belief that use of
fetal tissue from aborted infants or the use of embryos in
experimentation will lead inevitably to further abuses, including the
use of the eggs from aborted babies to be donated to infertile women,
cloning, and the creation of chimeras -- humans with transplanted animal
genes.

Another pro-life group, Lutherans for Life, is particularly concerned
over the ever-increasing demand for fetal brain tissue for research
experiments. Fetal brain tissue must be alive and intact when
transplantation occurs, requiring that the brain be sucked from the
fetus' skull while the infant is still alive. This method of extraction
was perfected by Dr. Barry Hoffer and his associates. Hoffer was a
member of the 1988 National Institutes of Health panel that recommended
overturning the moratorium on fetal tissue transplantation.

Opponents of fetal tissue research also fear that increased demand
for fetal tissue will change -- and indeed already has changed -- the
way abortions are performed. Indeed, Dr. Bernard Nathanson -- an early
pioneer of the pro-choice movement personally responsible for thousands
of abortions, but who later came to abhor abortion and today actively
promotes the end to its legal sanction -- predicted years ago that
abortionists in the U.S. would eventually adopt certain procedures for
the purpose of obtaining fetal tissue.

For instance, in Sweden, the abortionist cuts a hole in the fetus'
skull as it appears in the cervix, then sucks out the brain to provide
fresh tissue. Nathanson predicted in 1992 that a fetal "farm industry"
would grow out of increased demand for fetal tissues in research.

Babies, fish, insects

Dr. Arthur Caplan with the Hastings Center, a New York-based ethics
think tank, has observed that harvesting fetal tissue from aborted
babies is a "ticking time bomb of bioethics" because of where it could
lead -- and by reliable reports, already has led.

The harvesting of baby organs has long been debated among
bioethicists. Ethicist Mary Ann Warren, for example, advocated the use
of unborn infants as organ farms. As early as the October 1978 issue of
Hastings Center Report, Warren supported the concept of a woman
deliberately conceiving a child to abort it for its body parts to aid
someone else. She observed, "While a fetus of five or six months,
perhaps, possesses some flickering of sensation or some capacity to feel
pain, this is equally true and probably even more true of creatures like
fish or insects, which few would doubt the propriety of killing in order
to save human lives. In such cases, a proper respect for the right to
life requires that it not be respected where it does not exist."

Warren's view was supported by bioethicist Mary Mahowald who wrote in
the February, 1987 issue of the Hastings Center Report, that the
cannibalization of live babies "... is morally defensible if dead
fetuses are not available or are not conducive to successful
transplantation."

Babies, pork bellies, wheat

Dr. Jean Wright, a pediatrician with Children's Health Care of
Atlanta, Ga., testified before Congress in 1996 on the topic of fetal
pain as it relates to partial-birth abortion. She is also a spokesman
for the Christian Medical and Dental Society, a professional group based
in Tennessee.

Wright told WorldNetDaily that since she has been following the
debate over fetal tissue harvesting and abortion, it now makes sense to
her why there has been such aggressive support for partial-birth
abortion among those in the abortion industry: There's money to be made.

"We're taking a precious human life and turning it into a commodity,
like pork bellies or wheat that you would bid for out on the Web," said
Wright.

She says physicians who say they must use tissues from aborted babies
are being dishonest, adding that there are numerous ethical ways of
obtaining fetal cells. Cells can easily be obtained through cord blood
at the time of the delivery of a normal healthy baby, for instance.
These cells can be harvested and grown for research. "You don't have to
go after discarded fetal tissue," said Wright.

Having studied the requests for fetal tissue from researchers,
including the truncated time frames they require for harvesting to
delivery, Wright has arrived at a discomfiting conclusion: Since the
time frames are simply too short to be met through a normal abortion
procedure, she says, many of these orders are filled through
partial-birth abortions, "where somebody is literally standing there
with the jars and equipment ready to move on it."