A week after a New Mexico abortion facility was slapped with a lawsuit alleging it gave researchers an aborted baby’s body without the mother’s full knowledge or consent, a pro-life group says more women have come forward with similar complaints.
The Stream reports Elisa Martinez of the New Mexico Alliance for Life said their attorney is looking into the new complaints they received against Southwestern Women’s Options, a late-term abortion facility in Albuquerque.
In connection with the lawsuit, the pro-life group launched a new website where women who believe their rights were violated at Southwestern can go to learn more and receive free legal consultation.
Last week, Jessica Duran filed her lawsuit against Southwestern, alleging that it did not tell her that donating her aborted baby’s body to research was voluntary. Duran also said the abortion facility did not give her details about how her baby’s remains would be used in the research.
New Mexico Alliance for Life is supporting her in the effort.
“They take advantage of women like me in frantic situations by not giving us all the facts and information we are entitled to,” Duran said in a statement on Dec. 5. “The very people who advertise they offer women ‘the right to choose’ at Southwestern Women’s Options violated my right to choose.”
Here’s more from The Stream:
An investigation by NMAFL and the Congressional Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives revealed that two aborted babies within the approximate age range of Duran’s baby were provided by SWO to [University of New Mexico researchers] in the same week of Duran’s abortion in 2012. Duran “reasonably” believes one of these bodies belonged to her aborted daughter, the lawsuit states, but never received the documentation she asked for to confirm.
Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram to help us share pro-life pictures.
In filing the lawsuit, Duran asked New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas to criminally investigate both UNM and SWO. Six months ago in June 2016, the Select Panel issued a criminal referral to Balderas following an investigation of the “symbiotic relationship” between SWO and UNM.
Balderas has not launched an investigation.
The abortion clinic responded to the lawsuit last week by saying that it provides “quality care in accordance with state regulations,” according to the Albuquerque Journal.
However, a U.S. Congressional panel also found evidence of possible illegal activity at Southwestern. In June, the U.S. House panel sent evidence to New Mexico Attorney General Balderas indicating that the University of New Mexico and the 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.
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 may have profited from the body parts in violation of federal laws.
Testimony during a Congressional hearing in March also revealed how Planned Parenthood deceives women on its “fetal tissue donation” consent forms.
The Planned Parenthood form promised pregnant women considering abortion that aborted fetal tissue “has been used to treat and find a cure for such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS.” However, no cures for these diseases are currently available, and no current therapies for them use aborted fetal tissue.
Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, a scientist from the University of California at San Diego and the key witness for Planned Parenthood, admitted to the Select Panel on Infant Lives that the abortion group’s claims were “inappropriate” and never would have passed his review board.
