Some of America’s top universities have signed a letter urging states not to support legislation that would ban the sale of aborted babies for research. The letter comes after ten videos surfaced exposing Planned Parenthood’s organ harvesting business, along with documents linking some colleges to their abhorrent practices.
The Association of American Medical Colleges initiated the letter and so far more than three-dozen research universities have signed it, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the University of Chicago and the Medical College of Wisconsin. As LifeNews previously reported, In the last three months information has surfaced about publicly funded universities, such as Colorado State University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota negotiating with organ harvesting companies to purchase the body parts of aborted babies.
Now Politico reports that some of these schools believe they are the new targets of pro-life efforts in the country. For example, the dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine said that his faculty were linked to Nazi war criminals and attacked personally. Dr. Robert Golden said, “It’s the first time this has ever gotten any intense attention — it’s also never gotten as nasty and personal before.”
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The school’s top bioethicist Alta Charo added, “This is a debate about abortion — not fetal tissue research. That’s just an excuse. If you were to show pictures of cadavers — of what we do when we take out their bones, take out their organs, it would be equally hard. These images are just hard … But [fetal tissue research] is no different than working with another deceased human, whether murdered or dead of natural causes. And we do that as a matter of course.”
The chancellor and CEO of New York Medical College Dr. Edward Halperin agreed and said something similar to the officials from the University of Wisconsin. He said, “This really isn’t about science. This is really people making a point about abortion and it’s outrageous.”
Dr. Halperin also tried to justify using aborted babies for research by saying that good could come from abortions. He said, “Godawful things happen — people die in motorcycle accidents — but at least we try to make some of good of it with organ transplantations. You can have your opinion about abortion, but are you going to throw it out, or use it to make a vaccine?”
Unfortunately, these comments are exactly why people have compared their work with that of Nazi doctors. The infamous doctor who conducted research on children during the Holocaust, Joseph Mengele, claimed that he tortured and killed people for the sake of “medical research.” Ultimately, regardless of whether fetal tissue research is beneficial, the end doesn’t justify the means just like it didn’t in the holocaust.
After the first video was released by the Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood tried to spin their work into a humanitarian effort, similar to the way universities are doing now.
They said, “In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards.”
