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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Disposition of Aborted Fetuses
Message-ID: <863@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Jun-85 13:16:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: bunker.863
Posted: Sat Jun  8 13:16:30 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Jun-85 02:51:59 EDT
References: <855@bunker.UUCP>
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Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
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I have received the documentation regarding the disposition of
aborted fetuses, and will now post some excerpts, as promised.
Because of the amount of material, this artcle contains some
introductory material and references on fetal experimentation.
A future article will deal with the use of fetuses in drugs,
cosmetics, and art.

Before getting to the references, I'd like to make a few comments
regarding the responses I received.

Several people wondered why I think the disposition of
aborted fetuses is an important (or even relevant) topic.
I thought that the fact that I was bringing up an aspect of
abortion rarely mentioned was enough to warrant posting to
this newsgroup.  But more than that, if there is money to be
made with aborted fetuses, this presents a colossal conflict
of interest to physicians.  It is already more lucrative for
a doctor to perform abortions than to take care of mother
and child through a complete pregnancy.  The aftermarket for
fetuses compounds what is already a conflict of interest.

Some asked what I thought ought to be done with the fetuses.
That's too easy; I think they ought to be allowed to live.
I object to what happens to aborted fetuses because such
"useful purposes" will lead (have led?) to more unnecessary
abortions.

Many also wondered why I would be concerned with what happens
to the placenta.  Clearly, compared to the issue of the fetus,
the placenta is not so important, and I am not going to press
the issue of what happens to placentae.  I was not equally
impressed by everything in the article (some people apparently
didn't read it well enough to notice that I didn't write it;
par for the course, I suppose).

-------Personals---------

To Mike Huybensz:  What do you mean, "Once again, Samuelson is
determined to bludgeon our sensibilities..." ?  This implies
that I have attempted to "bludgeon" your sensibilities before;
to what articles of mine do you refer?  

To Jeff Sontag: Regarding the $5500/lb for fetuses: this is
clarified in the followup material.  That price is for a
particular protein extracted mostly from placentae, not for
unprocessed fetuses.  I regret the unclear passage in the
article.

To Don Steiny: "Fetuses are like other dead animal material" --
except that they aren't dead before they're put to some of
the uses mentioned in the article, and they aren't animal;
they are human.

To Mike Gray: I don't know why anybody would use human fetuses
as a source of cosmetic ingredients; but they do.  I am not
convinced that the negative PR would kill sales, but I hope so.

To Sophie Quigley: Thanks for reading the article.  Of those
who responded publicly, you may be the only one who did so.

Now, on to the references.
(Some of the citations are incomplete; sometimes this is
because my copies are very blurry in spots).

----------Fetal Experimentation----------

Exclusive to Life Times (no date):
	The U.S. government has been funding some gruesome experiments
	on live aborted babies that are kept alive for the sole purpose
	of medical experimentation.
		The live aborted babies were purchased from a Helsinki
	hospital with funds supplied by the U.S. government.  This money
	was funneled into Finland by an American medical researcher, Dr.
	Peter Adam of Cleveland, Ohio.
		Adam, 44, dies just recently of a brain tumor.  His widow,
	Dr. Katherine King, a pediatrician, said that her husband had
	long ago severed all ties with his Finnish colleagues and that
	money from the U.S. government no longer was being used to finance
	the experimentation on live aborted babies.
		Finland was selected for these experiments because of
	its extremely liberal abortion laws, which allow a physician
	to legally abort a fetus as old as five months.  Many of the
	unborn babies survive the abortion procedure.
		The babies that survived were kept alive in an incubator
	in a Helsinki hospital and then were transported to a Turku
	hospital, where the gruesome experiments were conducted by
	Finnish researcher Dr. Mariti Kekomaki.  One of Kekomaki's
	reports about the experiments reveal their horrendous nature:
	"They took the fetus and cut its belly open.  They said they
	wanted his liver."
		Kekomaki added: "They carried the baby out of the
	incubator and it was STILL ALIVE [emphasis mine -GMS].  It
	was a boy.  It had a complete body, with hands, feet, mouth,
	and ears.:  It was even secreting urine.
	...
		A very disturbing feature of these fetal experiments
	is that the mothers of the live aborted babies never were
	informed that their babies lived through the abortions and
	that they were used for experiments.  Explained Kekomaki:
	"We don't ask the mothers for their permission because,
	naturally, they would not allow it."
	...

From an article by Joan Wester Anderson (I don't know where or
when it was published):

	"The occassional delivery of a fetus with a heartbeat
	suggests that ... (these)fetal tissues might be suitable
	for organ transplants ... and for basic research." [Note:
	elisions are Ms. Anderson's]

	[The above statement] was printed in the May 15, 1974
	edition of the _American Journal of Obstetrics-Gynecology_,
	and details experiments now being done on infants aborted
	by a chemical called Prostin F2 Alpha.
	...
	Aborted infants are often sent to a hospital's pathology
	lab or anatomy department where they may be used for research
	purposes.  Wilhamine Dick, testifying at the Sharp Abortion
	Law Commission Hearing of March 14, 1972, said Pittsburgh's
	Magee Women's Hospital packed aborted babies in ice while
	STILL MOVING [emphasis mine - GMS] and shipped them to
	experimental labs.
	...
	According to the _Washington Post_ (April 15, 1973), Dr. Gerald
	Gaull, chief of pediatrics at New York State Institute for
	Basic Research in Mental Retardation "injects radioactive
	chemicals into umbilical cords of fetuses ... WHILE THE HEART
	IS STILL BEATING [emphasis mine - GMS], he removes their
	brains, lungs, liver, and kidneys for study."
	...
	Tissue cultures have also been obtained from fetuses aborted
	by hysterotomy.  The _New England Journal of Medicine_ reported
	(May 18, 1972) that "most of the babies delivered by the latter
	method were still alive when they were dropped into a tissue
	grinder to be homogenized.

From an uncited article:
	A magazine called "The Elements," May 1976, says:
	"The best fetal research tissue is obtained from the least
	commonly performed abortion technique -- hysterotomy. The
	hysterotomy-aborted fetus is removed intact ... so all
	the fetal cells and organs are fully functioning."
	(Translation: the baby is alive.)  It goes on to estimate
	total trade in "fetal" tissue at about $1 million annually.
	and notes that "high prices paid for fetuses may encourage ...
	unnecessary hysterotomies on welfare patients as the surest
	way of getting 'salable tissue'" [Elisions not mine - GMS]

	On March 14, 197[368] (blurred copy), the Attorny General of
	Connecticut presented to the U.S. Supreme Court an affidavit
	regarding an incident at the Yale New Haven Medical Center
	where a healthy baby was surgically removed from his mother
	and immediately dissected, living and without anesthetic.

From a pamphlet published by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life,
a photograph captioned:
	_The Last Hours of an Aborted Baby_.  Dr. Lawrence Lawn, of
	Cambridge University's Department of Experimental Medicine
	at work experimenting on a living, legally aborted, human
	fetus.  Some British doctors have been vigorously defending
	their experiments on live aborted babies after a storm of
	protest blew up in England when a Member of Parliament told
	the press that private abortion clinics had been selling
	live aborted babies for research.  Dr. Lawn was quoted in
	the _Cambridge Evening News_ as saying, "We are simply using
	something which is destined for the incinerator to benefit
	mankind ... Of course we would not dream of experimenting
	with a viable child.  We would not consider that to be right."
	The Langham Street (abortion) Clinic admitted sending aborted
	fetuses to the Middlesex Hospital (The People, May 17, 1970).
	A spokesman for the clinic said that the fetuses "were aged
	betweed eighteen and twenty-two weeks ... Our doctor had to
	give some special attention to the operation.  He did this
	at his own expense and dispatched the fetuses to his
	colleagueat the Middlesex Hospital.  It had to be done
	pretty promptly, but the hospital is only a couple of minutes
	away.  In the _News of the World_, for the same date, this
	same man, Mr. Philip Stanley, is also quoted as saying, "The
	position is quite clear.  A fetus has to be 28 weeks to be
	legally viable.  Earlier than that it is so much garbage.
	[Elisions not mine - GMS]

------------Still to come: Fetuses in cosmetics, drugs, and art------