A group of state lawmakers are urging the University of New Mexico to stop using aborted babies’ body parts for research while an investigation into the matter continues, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
University researchers have had an on-going relationship with late-term abortionist Curtis Boyd, and have been using late-term aborted babies’ body parts from his facility in their research. In June, a U.S. Congressional panel sent evidence to the New Mexico Attorney General indicating that the university and late-term abortion facility may have broken a state law involving the use of aborted babies’ body parts.
Earlier this year, the government panel also uncovered evidence that the abortion facility may have provided aborted babies’ brains to a summer camp for youth at the university.
Now, a group of Republican state lawmakers wants the university to suspend its use of aborted babies’ body parts in research. The legislators recently sent a letter to the board of regents urging them to stop the activity while the investigation continues, according to the local news report.
“I hope that we can work together to restore proper oversight,” read the letter, signed by 25 state lawmakers. “No one wants to see the reputation of our flagship university unnecessarily damaged over the actions of a few unaccountable faculty members.”
Here’s more from the report:
Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, said he sent the letter to regents because he and other lawmakers have had difficulty getting answers from Health Sciences Chancellor Dr. Paul Roth. Health Sciences includes the University of New Mexico Hospital and researchers who use fetal tissue for medical research.
“I am asking the regents to look into it because, quite frankly, Dr. Roth and his staff have been a little less than forthcoming,” Montoya told the Journal on Tuesday.
Montoya said he started asking UNM questions about how it handles its fetal research in the summer of 2015 at the behest of constituents who wanted to know more about UNM’s connection to Southwestern Women’s Options and the clinic’s director.
In a statement, the university Health Sciences Center responded by saying the university has not violated the law. The statement also said the university welcomes the opportunity to show that it conducts research “ethically, lawfully and transparently.”
No matter what the investigation uncovers, the unearthed evidence indicates a disturbing attitude about aborted babies and the use of their body parts at the university.
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In August the Albuquerque Journal reviewed the evidence uncovered by the Congressional panel and found notes indicating a flippant, even celebratory attitude from university lab technicians as they collected aborted babies’ body parts for the university’s Sciences Center.
The lab technician “wrote in his notebook ‘whoo hoo!!’ when the [abortion] clinic was able to provide a ‘whole pancreas’ of a fetus for another project and drew a frowning face next to an entry that showed that another fetal pancreas was not intact,” according to the report.
The lab technician’s notebook also contained gruesome details about the babies who were aborted, including an “intact” aborted infant who was 30.5 weeks along – old enough to survive outside the womb — and at least 20 aborted babies who were past the 20-week gestation mark.
Among the other disturbing details was a note indicating that the abortion facility may have provided aborted babies’ brains to a summer camp for youth.
Live Action News first reported the gruesome new piece of evidence about the summer camp:
In explicit detail, the journal describes various body parts of aborted babies and, in some cases, what happened to them.
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation to come from the journal is a description of baby brains that were passed on to someone who wanted to use them at a youth summer camp.
The journal notes:
5-24-12 “Asked clinic for digoxin treated tissue 24-28 wks. for methylation study & because [redacted] wants whole, fixed brains to dissect w/ summer camp students.”While details about the summer camp and the students remain scarce, the horror of having young people handle and cut into the brains of aborted, likely viable babies – possibly without their knowledge – is hardly conceivable.
Responding to the horrific revelation, university officials told the Albuquerque Journal that it was an educational research program called “Neuroscience Summer Experience,” not a camp. They said students included undergraduate and graduate students from the university, or children of faculty members. They also said a faculty member dissected the aborted babies’ brains, not the students.
The evidence came from a larger Congressional investigation that formed after a series of undercover videos revealed Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities could be selling aborted babies’ body parts in violation of the law. Since then, the panel has uncovered a growing list of evidence that abortion facilities and groups that handle aborted babies’ body parts have violated federal laws.
