Pennsylvania lawmakers want authorities to investigate the University of Pittsburgh after allegations surfaced that aborted babies may be being born alive so that their organs can be harvested for scientific research through a taxpayer-funded project at the university.
On Wednesday, state Sens. Michele Brooks, Scott Hutchinson, Scott Martin and Judy Ward announced plans to introduce a bill instructing Pennsylvania Auditor General Timothy DeFoor and Attorney General Josh Shapiro to investigate the university.
“We plan to introduce legislation in the near future to investigate reports that the University of Pittsburgh is harvesting body parts from live and aborted babies for their use in research,” they wrote in a memo seeking co-sponsors.
The university is facing growing calls for an investigation after Judicial Watch and the Center for Medical Progress exposed evidence of babies potentially being born alive in abortions and other disturbing practices at the university. The evidence came from documents they obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through a Freedom of Information Act request.
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The documents show that the federal government gave the University of Pittsburgh at least $2.7 million over the past five years to become a “tissue hub” for aborted baby body parts for scientific research.
The Center for Medical Progress and several doctors, including one who supports abortion, pointed to documents and statements from university officials that suggest some aborted babies’ hearts still may be beating when their organs are harvested for scientific research.
On Wednesday, the state lawmakers said they want the auditor general to review the state taxpayer funding that goes to the university to determine if any of the funds are being spent on scientific research with organs from aborted babies. Their bill would require DeFoor’s office to report the results of the audit to the Pennsylvania General Assembly and post it on the attorney general’s website.
In the bill, the lawmakers also instruct the state attorney general to investigate the university’s research practices over the past decade, including “any processes, procedures, policies, and practices undertaken to conduct research utilizing live fetal or aborted remains.”
Dan Bartkowiak, director of communications for the Pennsylvania Family Institute, thanked the state senators for taking action.
“We need answers,” Bartkowiak told LifeNews. “Is the University of Pittsburgh involved with inhumane, unethical, taxpayer-funded experiments on body parts from aborted babies? Are they indeed using barbaric procedures that appear to involve taking born alive babies and harvesting their organs while they are still alive? Quite frankly, we don’t know the full details. And that is precisely what we need to find out.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and state Attorney General Shapiro, both pro-abortion Democrats, have ignored the allegations and refused to comment.
Earlier this month, a University of Pittsburgh spokesman called the allegations “irresponsible and false” in a statement to Fox News. He said the university and its partners comply with all laws, and the university itself does not perform abortions.
But the university has been using Americans’ tax dollars to pay for its “tissue hub” for aborted baby body parts for years. According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch and the Center for Medical Progress, the university requested $3.2 million over a five-year period in 2015, and it has received at least $2.7 million so far.
The Center for Medical Progress said the university documents and statements confirm that aborted babies’ hearts still are beating while their kidneys are harvested for scientific research.
“Pitt is now admitting to the news media that the aborted babies are still alive at the time their kidneys are cut out for [National Institutes of Health] grant money,” said David Daleiden, founder and president of the Center for Medical Progress.
In grant application documents provided by the federal government, the University of Pittsburgh mentions “labor induction” as a “procedure that will be used to obtain the tissue,” according to the Center for Medical Progress.
Labor induction abortions are basically what they sound like; the abortionist typically injects the poison digoxin into the unborn baby’s heart and then induces labor so that the mother gives birth to her dead baby’s body. This method is used in later second- and third-trimester abortions.
If digoxin is not used – and the Center for Medical Progress found that scientists want “fetal tissue” without digoxin because the poison interferes with their research, there is a chance of the baby being born alive. One study estimated up to 50 percent of labor-induction abortions without digoxin can result in an infant born alive.
Previously, LifeNews and other pro-lifers exposed a disturbing experiment at the University of Pittsburgh that involved scalping babies aborted at five months and then implanting their scalps onto rodents to study the human immune system. The information comes from a study that University of Pittsburgh researchers published in 2020 in the journal “Scientific Reports.”
Former Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Cheryl Lynn Allen, Catholic League president Bill Donohue, state Rep. Kathy Rapp, U.S. Senate candidate Sean Parnell, state pro-life organizations and others have been urging authorities to investigate the university for weeks.
