In China they are eating babies, in Loma Linda, they are Harvesting Organs
When reports
of Chinese citizens eating human fetuses for health reasons surfaced in
Hong Kong last year, many dismissed them as fiction . . , but when Eastweek
and Eastern Express, two English-language publications based in
Hong Kong, investigated, the reporters were in for a shock. DISCOVERY IN CHINA One
investigator feigned illness and asked a Shenzhen hospital doctor for
fetuses. Holding up a fist-sized glass bottle stuffed with ten thumb-sized
unborns, the doctor said, [They were] all aborted this morning. You can
take them. We are a state-run hospital
and don't charge anything.
A private hospital spokesman offered to sell the reporters
full-term unborn, which he claimed contain the best healing
qualities. Zou Qin, a
doctor who claimed to have aborted several hundred unborn and eaten 100
fetuses herself, said, People normally prefer [fetuses from] young
women, and even better, the first boy and a male. She justifies
the practice: They are wasted if we don't eat them . . Zou Qin has
fed fetuses to her sisters children. I wash them with clear water
until they look transparent white and then stew them. Making soup is
best. A photo depicts Zou Qin smiling, holding up a tiny fetus which
hasn't made it to her bowl yet. WHAT DO WE DO HERE? The stories
are gruesome and almost unreal. Eating babies? But that, of course, is
China, we say. In America, we abort babies, but we don't eat them. Or do we? The ongoing
American debate over using fetuses in medicine bears some striking
parallels to China. One big difference is that America better understands
the importance of spin and proper marketing techniques . . Donating
ones own organs, or even allowing a loved ones untimely death to
take on added meaning by permitting doctors to use her organs to help
another, has a long and respectable history. But by interweaving the
taking of life with the giving of life, medicine and science begin to
confuse their mission. A quick mention of the aborted fetus, and then on
to the happy ending, the discovery, the patients cure, the family's
joy! Real life
isn't that simple. FETAL RESEARCH IN AMERICA The history of
fetal research is inextricably linked to the 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision legalizing abortion on demand in America. Other than a very few failed experiments around mid-century, little fetal
research had been done before the 1970s. Roe and its progeny placed
the preborn humans body into legal limbo. Thus it became possible to
observe the incredible irony of using the body parts of an allegedly
non-human fetus to treat specifically human ailments. The heart might
still beat, and the [unborn] child feel pain, but the fetus was now
considered a product. And like most
products, The fresher, the better. Deterioration of brain tissue, as
well as other bodily organs, commences almost immediately after death. So
it became important to create an efficient assembly line which would
seamlessly take the baby from the warm womb to deep frozen sterility . . Finnish and
American scientists did an experiment in 1973, described in Newsweek: [The team] decapitated a dozen human fetuses, each aborted live through hysterotomy, and kept the heads alive artificially for study. The ghoulish experiment--partially funded by the National Institute of Health--was designed to measure fetal metabolism. At about the same time, another research team kept a batch of aborted fetuses alive in saline solution in order to find out if they could absorb oxygen. One fetus survived for nearly a day. STILL BEING DONE TODAY In 1974,
responding to public censure of such science, Congress banned the federal
funding of research on aborted
fetuses, and tightened those restrictions in 1985. This did
not, however, forbid private institutions from conducting fetal research,
since the fetus is not protected by law in the U.S. And the restrictions
on [federal] funding were not total: Fetal tissue transplant research,
which to this day remains the most medically and monetarily promising
use for the unborn, was sponsored by the NIH until 1988, when
President Reagan's administration imposed a moratorium on such
funding. Much fetal
tissue research remained unaffected by the moratorium, which continued
under the Bush administration. The National Committee
for a Human Life Amendment observed: Since the Moratorium took effect, NIH has spent more than $23.4 million to support 295 research projects involving human fetal tissue. As the old
reporters saw goes, Follow the money. During the 1980s
and early 90s, research pressed on in a number of areas. ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL: AT LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY One of the
most controversial programs of the 1980s was that of Loma Linda University
Medical Center, who chose to harvest the organs of [live] infants
with some or most of their brains missing. The harvesting
did, of course, cause the death of such infants; but, since these infants
did not in Loma Linda's opinion qualify for personhood, their organs
were considered fair game. In 1988 the University gave up the
programbut not for moral reasons: The transplants
didn't work. LOMA LINDA RESEARCH CONTINUES Loma
Linda's, and other American, fetal research does have a Chinese
connection. As Loma Linda's Medical Center notes in an Internet post: A fetal brain bank has been established at Hua Shan Hospital, where fetal brain tissue is held in cryogenic [super cold] preservation as part of a long range basic sciences research program. Parkinson's is only one of many potential uses for the tissue samples. The [LLU]
Internet post goes on to note that, for qualified doctors, potential
withdrawals are available from the Chinese brain bank. In addition,
seven North American Parkinson's sufferers were taken to China between
1989 and 1991 for fetal transplants. [About this project of theirs, the
LLU post notes:] Success was impressive, but the long standing ban on [aborted] fetal tissue research made this kind of surgery impractical in the U.S. And Dr. Z.S.
Tang, a fetal tissue research pioneer
from Chinas Shanghai Medical University and Hua Shan
Hospital, was a visiting professor at Loma Linda University Medical Center
during the summer and fall of 1992. A Loma Linda
doctor, Robert P. Iacono, returned Tangs visit by doing fetal tissue
graft implants in China. Back in the
U.S., in only the third day of his presidency, Bill Clinton repealed the
Reagan/Bush ban in order, he said, to free science and medicine from
the grasp of politics . . WHY THE INDUSTRY WANTS PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS But the
industry has continued to research and develop their product. Though many
pro-lifers have heard about the newest abortion method, the so-called
D&X [dilation and extraction, more commonly known as
partial-birth abortion], few know that the method is often touted as a
superior way to obtain undamaged viable fetal tissue. Former
abortionist Bernard
Nathanson
described the technique as used by Swedish doctors harvesting
unborn's brain tissue for treating Parkinson's disease: Pregnant women at 13 to 18 weeks are placed on an operating table, the cervix is dilated, the bag of water is broken, the fetal head is guided into position just above the open cervix, the fetal skull is drilled open and a suction device is placed into the brain . . the brain substance is then suctioned out and placed immediately on ice to preserve its viability, then the fetus is aborted. Similar
processes, according to Nathanson, are used in procuring fetal pancreas,
fetal liquid and fetal thymus . . WHERE WE ARE HEADED And finally,
the runway is being smoothed for full-blown research
on living, fertilized embryos, including those artificially
inseminated in the laboratory. If embryos, why not grow fetuses in the lab
as well? Scientists could then replace laboratory rats with a superior
product more closely related to the human species. When, in late
1994, an NIH panel recommended giving the green light to embryo
experimentation, First Things observed: We are confident that most people, to the extent that they are aware of the Panels recommendation, experience an immediate and strong revulsion. This is not to be dismissed as an irrational reaction. It signals a deep, intuitive awareness of lines that must not be crossed if we are to maintain our sometimes fragile hold upon our own humanity. Between
7 and 14 million abortions are performed in China each year. When
this story first broke, the major news media in America refused to mention
it. China
receives $11-12 million annually from the UN Population Fund and
International Planned Parenthood Federation, both of which receive major
yearly support from the U.S. Government. Killing the babies soon means
there are more old people than younger ones. China is becoming top-heavy
in elderly people. Killing the old ones will be the next step. |