Abortion, Infanticide of Ukraine Babies Fuels Stem Cell Research

Bioethics   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 12, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Abortion, Infanticide of Ukraine Babies Fuels Stem Cell Research Industry Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 12
, 2006

London, England (LifeNews.com) — A new report from the BBC in England says that the abortion and infanticide of healthy babies in Ukraine is fueling its stem cell research industry. The news service obtained disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations of babies showing their bodies ravaged for organs and cells.

The BBC says it spoke to many mothers in the city of Kharkiv who say they gave birth to healthy babies only to have members of the hospital maternity staff take them and kill them for research.

Local authorities exhumed the bodies of 30 infants and unborn children from a cemetery used by one maternity hospital. Video footage of that was given to the British news service and the Council of Europe.

The tape shows brains and organs having been stripped from the children and some of the bodies dismembered.

One pathologist told the BBC that the footage doesn’t show typically post-mortem practices and he believes the babies have been killed to obtain stem cells from their bone marrow.

The council says there is a trafficking of children snatched at birth and silence from local hospitals that are profiting from it.

The report follows on the heels of news that some Ukrainian women are being paid $200 to get pregnant so they can have abortions after eight weeks and the stem cells from their aborted baby can be used for beauty injections from women from England and other countries.

"This commoditization of human life is pernicious, may be growing, and is of crucial concern in many fields," bioethicist Wesley J. Smith said in response to the news.

"Cloners need human eggs for each cloning attempt. If human cloning ever took off, it would require tens of millions of eggs, and the worry is that poor women will become so many egg farms," Smith said.

"I am convinced that cloning will research will eventually lead to fetal farming–which if personhood theory is accepted, would be perfectly permissible," he added.

"When we lose sight of the need to promote human exceptionalism and its corollary, the intrinsic value of human life, these are the territories we enter," Smith concluded.