ISS:Fetal Tissue - A Grisly Issue we must face  by the Family Protection Lobby

   This article appeared in the December issue of the Maranatha Manna
of Christ on Delmarva. It is a ministry of WOLC christian radio station
located in Princess Anne, MD. This article was written by Bob Wright.
He is the Director of the Family Protection Lobby. He left the
pastorate to take over the directorship of the lobby from his son. The
Family Protection Lobby is the first evangelical Christian ministry
representing the pro-life and pro-family position in Maryland. The
article was not copyrighted.

   FETAL TISSUE: A GRISLY ISSUE WE MUST FACE

   The Family Protection Lobby is leading the fight in Maryland to
prevent the sale and exportation of aborted fetal tissue. The use of
aborted babies for medical experimentation and as a spare parts bank
for human organs demonstrates that our nation is rapidly embarking on a
path to self-destruction.

   To remain silent on this issue is to ignore the fact that we are at
a major crossroads in the decline of our society. The practice of
selling the remains of aborted children as a mere "product of
conception" is grisly. Mr Gary L. Bauer, head of the White House Office
of Policy Development, said recently, "If things keep moving the way
they are now, we're going to end up with a whole new industry (the sale
of fetal tissue)."

   The White House Office of Policy Development recently produced a
Report to the President on the Family. In this report the subject of
using aborted fetal tissue is discussed. By permission, the section on
fetal tissue is reproduced below in its entirety:

   Section IX - Equal Protection of Children When the President said,
"America was founded on a moral proposition that human life, all human
life, is sacred. And this proposition is the bedrock of our national
life, the foundation of our laws," he was also pointing to the
foundation of the family in America. Families exist to protect and love
their young, whose lives, as the President said, are sacred. When
unborn babies are deliberately aborted - as over 20 million have been
since Roe v. Wade - the essential purpose of the family itself is
undermined as it also is when they are exploited for their anatomical
parts.

   Research to date has involved the tissues and organs of dead and
live fetuses and newborn babies. Tissue from the brain, pancreas, and
liver of fetuses has been used for the actual or potential application
in treatment of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's
chorea, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, leukemia, aplastic anemia, and
radiation sickness.

   Handicapped and anencephalic newborns (malformation of the skull
with absence of all or part of the brain) have been used for heart
transplants. Additional applications are expected for fetal and newborn
tissue. Such tissue is desirable because it grows quickly, is
adaptable, and is less likely than adult tissue to cause a rejection
reaction.

   To make it easier to harvest anencephalic newborn's organs and
tissues, proposals are being made to modify the definition of death
currently used by most states (the Uniform Determination of Death Act)
so that parts can be removed from the anencephalics before they
actually die. New standards under discussion would redefine death in
order to allow handicapped anencephalic newborns as legally dead, or
substitute terms such as "brain absent" or "respiratory brain dead" for
the current whole brain dead requirement of the Universal Determination
of the Death Acts. A commentary in the Journal of the American Medical
Association recently described these attempts to lessen the standard of
death for anencephalics as a "radical reformulation of our definition
of death."

   We have glimpses of the implications of transplantation from fetuses
and newborns in these events have already occurred.

    In March and April, 1988, in England, brain tissue was removed
from aborted fetuses and transplanted into Parkinson's disease
patients. The mothers of the aborted fetuses were not asked for their
specific consent to the transplants.

   The chairman of the review committee defended the decision
explaining, "Most of us were under the impression that women going
through an abortion were denying the humanity of the fetus."

    In October, Loma Linda University Medical Center in California
transplanted a heart from Baby Gabriel, a Canadian anencephalic infant
whose life was prolonged to keep her tissues fresh for the procedure.

    In September, 1987, doctors in Mexico City successfully
transplanted tissues from a fetus (said to be spontaneously aborted)
into the brains of two Parkinson's disease patients. Doctors in Sweden
and Cuba reportedly performed similar operations in 1987.

    In the Soviet Union last year, an American doctor transplanted
liver cells from fetuses into six victims of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, who subsequently died of radiation overdoses.

    A woman who appeared on ABC TV's "Nightline" wanted to bear a
child who could be aborted to provide tissue in order to relieve her
father's Parkinson's disease. (The father refused.)

   The use of unborn children and newborn infants for transplantation
raises the most profound ethical issues for policy makers. Fetal and
newborn transplantation may encourage women to become pregnant just to
abort children for their tissues. Even though the use of live unborn
fetuses and the newborn in research is strictly controlled by federal
law and regulation (45 CFR Part 46), medical advances may encourage the
harvesting of fetal organs before fetal death; may encourage the
commercial exploitation of women; may encourage the buying and selling
of fetal tissues for profit; may encourage an increase in abortions to
meet the demand for fetal parts; may encourage the practice of keeping
anencephalic and other handicapped newborns alive to keep their tissues
fresh.

   Many observers and experts are gravely concerned about implications
of harvesting parts from unborn children and newborn infants. "This is
the ultimate issue of intergenerational justice, " according to Dr.
Arthur Caplan, Center for Biomedical Ethics, University of Minnesota.
"You're not just asking for pocketbooks of the young - you're asking
for body parts." Dr. Caplan has also noted, "The worst possible ethical
evil of all this would be to create lives simply in order to end them
and take the parts." Dr. Antonin Scommenga of Michael Reese Hospital
has a vision of "growing fetuses someday for spare parts, " which
prompted the Chicago Tribune to comment: "A tiny shadow of cannibalism
passes over that thought; a hint that an aging society might one day
breed its young to replace its own worn out organs."

   One of the most troubling aspects of this issue is the prospect of
harvesting parts from living unborn and newborn children a prospect
that would increase if the definition of death were diluted to allow
living anencephalic newborns to be considered legally dead. Some
researchers have defended the use of living donors for transplants, and
there have been allegations that tissues have been removed from living
fetuses and newborns. Three doctors from Case Western Reserve
University of Medicine wrote in the Hastings Center Report last year
that transplanting tissue from living "nonviable" aborted fetuses "is
morally defensible if dead fetuses are not available or are not
conducive to successful transplants." A Yale researcher is reported to
have said, "It doesn't make a whole lot of difference because the fetus
is going to be dead anyway, " about letting a live aborted baby die in
order to harvest its tissue.

   The willingness of some researchers to experiment on unborn children
was shown in projects in the 1960s and in the 1970s. In one case eight
living fetuses were decapitated, and their heads perfused (permeated
with a liquid) to study the oxidation of glucose. Among other cases,
living fetuses were placed in an immersion chamber to study respiration
through the skin; living fetuses were attached to an artificial
chamber; living fetuses had organs removed to study biosynthesis (the
formation of chemical compounds by cells of living organisms) in the
fetal liver and brain and to study the enzyme response of fetal liver.

   Regulations were issued in 1975 but they have not been modified
since 1978 and may need revision to close loopholes.

   NIH awarded $11.8 million for 116 grants for research with fetuses
last year, including a grant for research in China (which has a forced
abortion policy, even in late pregnancy). A report of one NIH fetal
experimentation project indicates the far reaching implications of
federally-funded fetal research. The report refers to the
cryopreservation (preservation by freezing) of fetal tissues, fetal
tissue donor banks and abortions performed each week by dilation and
extraction that "are available for our use as needed."

   The Department of Health and Human Services decided in March, 1988,
to temporarily withhold approval for new experiments at the National
Institute of Health involving tissue transplants from fetuses in
induced abortion, pending advice from one or more outside committees.

   The President has declared that the nation's "sacred legacy, and the
wellbeing and the future of our country, demand that protection of the
innocents must be guaranteed and that the personhood of the unborn be
declared and defended throughout our land." So far, the Administration
has been thwarted in its legislative attempts to protect the unborn
from abortion. The administration still has the opportunity to take
administrative action to protect aborted unborn and newborn children
from exploitation of their organs and tissues.

   Recommended Action It is recommended that the President direct the
Office of Policy Development on consultation with the Department of
Health and Human Services to develop options such as an Executive
Order, or other actions, if appropriate, that would, to the extent
permitted by law, protect unborn or newborn children from
experimentation, research and organ transplantation, except in cases
where the unborn or newborn child would itself directly benefit by any
such procedures to which it was subjected.

   Note: Unfamiliar and technical words appear with definitions added
immediately after them in parentheses and were added to the original
copy. (This marks the end of the excerpt from the Report to the
President on the Family.)

   The moral comparison has been made between the slaughter of the Jews
under the influence of Hitler and the current national policy on
abortion. We are now about to take a giant step in our continuing moral
slide. As in Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s, our nation's
medical research community is clamoring to do experimentation on the
remains of those deemed expendable.

   Like others before them, they are using situation ethics to argue
their case.

   They are saying that the good which may come out of this ghoulish
use of aborted fetal tissue outweighs the moral concerns.

   What are we becoming as a people?

   Something is being done. But these efforts need your personal
support. The Family Protection Lobby is asking you to become personally
involved.

   President Reagan is considering a ban on the use of aborted fetal
tissue.

   Abortion clinics in Maryland and other states are opposing his
efforts. They see a market for their ill-gotten remains of unborn
children. This new market will motivate even more efforts on their part
to offer cheaper, more accessible abortions.

   Misguided medical researchers are opposing the President's efforts
in the name of science and the advancement of health. They are not
concerned with the life of the unborn child. They are only concerned
with the quality of life for the born - an elusive goal and a clear
exercise in absurd situation ethics!

   The President needs our encouragement.

   I am asking you to make a telephone call to the executive Office of
the President and give your opinion on this subject. Please call (202)
456-7639. Tell Mr. Reagan's public opinion representative that you
support his proposed ban on using aborted fetal tissue for medical
experimentation and research.

   Further action is needed at the state level.

   Maryland has the third highest abortion rate in the nation. The
abortion clinics in Maryland are not required to report the number or
types of abortions they perform. There is no tracking; there is no
record. Furthermore, this state has available convenient airports such
as Dulles and Baltimore/Washington International. The sale of fetal
tissue is growing in Maryland, even to the exporting of it to other
states and to European markets.

   To begin a process to stop this practice, I have met with Del. John
Gary and State Sen. Frank Kelly. They have agreed to sponsor two bills
in the coming 1989 Maryland General Assembly. The first bill would
require the abortion clinics in Maryland to report the number and
nature of all abortions they perform. The second bill would prevent the
sale and exportation of aborted fetal tissue in Maryland.

   If you agree with the introduction of these bills, please contact
your Maryland legislators and request that they strongly support this
legislation. Ask them to co-sponsor the bills which would: (1) require
abortion clinics, hospitals and doctors to report abortions performed,
and (2) prevent the sale and exportation of fetal tissue in Maryland.

   Note: The bills are currently being written, and as of yet no bill
numbers have been assigned. They will be introduced at the first
session of the Maryland General Assembly next month.

   The chairman of the Eastern Shore delegation is Del. Mark Pilchard.
You can contact him by writing to him at RFD # 3, Box 100, Pocomoke, MD
21851.

   We would suggest you send Del. Pilchard a copy of this article and
ask him to personally endorse these bills and to spearhead an effort to
have them approved as delegation cosponsored bills.

   Your legislators need to hear from you on these life and death
issues. Unborn children cannot speak for themselves.

   For more information on this and other issues facing Maryland, call
the Family Protection Lobby in Annapolis at (800)633-1667.
