Can Our Country Have Sunk so Low?                        

 by Michael Corens                                                                                      Vol. XIII, No. 1, January 2000

The Web site for the United States government's National Institutes of Health includes a notice offering aborted baby parts for research purposes. The ad, worth quoting at some length, states the following. "Human embryonic and fetal tissues are available from the Central Laboratory for Human Embryology at the University of Washington. The laboratory, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health, can supply tissue from normal or abnormal embryos and fetuses of desired gestational ages between 40 days and term. Specimens are obtained within minutes of passage and tissues are aseptically identified, staged, and immediately processed according to the requirements of individual investigators.

"Presently, processing methods include immediate fixation, snap fixation, snap freezing in liquid nitrogen and placement in balanced salt solutions or media designated and/or supplied by investigators. Specimens are shipped by overnight express, arriving the day following procurement."

The notice, dated 1994 but advertising an ongoing, non-profit service, is chilling in the inhuman way it speaks of human life. "Normal" embryos mean unborn children that are perfect; "abnormal" means babies with disabilities. When the ad refers to "term" it presumably signifies unborn children that could survive outside the womb, possibly as late as nine months gestation. But business being what it is, even the large babies are guaranteed to arrive far quicker than the mail.

The laboratory will also provide only what is needed for any purchaser and will kindly cut up and dissect as required. One aborted child can provide a leg here, an arm there, a brain somewhere else, an internal organ in yet another location.

Goodness me, this is a capitalist dream! Very little overhead and a product that's increasingly available.

Grotesque as all this sounds, it's not entirely new. A company in Illinois offers $999 for brains eight weeks old or less, $400 for an intact embryo eight weeks or less, $600 for an unborn child more than eight weeks old and $550 for gonads. All prices, of course, in U.S. currency.

The outfit publishes a brochure for abortuaries in which it states now "you can turn your patient's decision into something wonderful." The document goes on to say, "We know your patient's decision to have an abortion was carefully considered and we also know it was a very difficult one to make ... we can train your staff to harvest and process fetal tissue. Based on your volume we will reimburse part or all of your employee's salary, thereby reducing your overhead."

Or to put it another way, there's a lot of money to be made here. Hey, nothing new. Many doctors have become wealthy through their work in the abortion industry.

Although it is technically illegal to sell body parts in the United States, those involved get around the law by "donating" organs and then receiving what is known as a site fee. So abortion is, as we have long known, a big business, yet we are still thought foolish enough to believe it is all about choice. Desperate women who go to abortuaries are told this might not be the right thing and they should consider all the possibilities. Sure, and I've got a full head of hair.

If experimentation must take place it should take place on animals. But I forgot. That would mean hurting little kittens and puppies and it just wouldn't be right. After all, we're human beings and cruelty is unacceptable. [Toronto Sun]

[Editorial Comment: Did you note in paragraph seven the phrase "harvest and process"? This is where the rejection of God inevitably leads. Defenseless humans become just a crop ready to "harvest and process". Of course, if evolution is true and we are merely the result of blind chance acting on eternal material stuff, why not? If there is no God, there is no good. Where there is no Judge, there can be no judgment, no basis for declaring that "harvesting" babies is monstrous. When our government (the National Institutes of Health [!]) partners with the baby butchers in such sin, can cannibalism be far behind? TCP]