Infanticide’s Profit Motive

[Parents should be warned that today's commentary may be too disturbing for children.] Tonight, the ABC television news magazine, 20/20, has scheduled an alarming broadcast. Their three-month investigation has helped uncover an industry that traffics in fetal body parts, turning abortion clinics into wholesalers for human experimentation. This explosive revelation, brought to light in part by researcher Mark Crutcher, makes clear that the abortion lobby is not as interested in promoting "choice" as it is in promoting profits. When President Clinton lifted the ban on fetal tissue research, after just two days in office, organizations like the Anatomic Gift Foundation seized the opportunity. They quickly entered into relationships with abortion clinics to, as they put it, "harvest" and distribute the tissue and organs of aborted babies. Organizations like this provide clinics with promotional brochures and consent forms for women having abortions. These brochures are chilling. Instead of pledging speedy delivery of pencils and paperclips, they offer "fresh fetal tissue: harvested and shipped to your specification... where and when you need it." With the incentive of promoting medical advances, they describe "how [abortionists] can turn [their] patient's decision into something wonderful." Although it's still illegal to buy or sell human tissue, abortion providers, collection firms, and medical researchers have entered into an unholy but profitable alliance to skirt the law. Middle-men pay the clinics for the chance to harvest the organs, and researchers pay to receive them, while all parties claim that no one is buying or selling fetal tissue. Baby body parts are sold on a "fee for service" basis. As World magazine put it, the price charts look "like a cannibal's wish list:" eyes, livers, spines, and other organs fetch up to $1000 apiece. Well, the market for fetal tissue and organs makes it clear that abortion kills babies—if they weren't human, there would be no demand. All of this casts the opposition to ending partial-birth abortion in a whole new light. Certain forms of abortion are specifically used to harvest intact and fresh body parts. And this may explain the abortion lobby's support for partial-birth abortion despite overwhelming public opposition. In partial-birth abortion, everything but the baby's head is delivered. The child is just inches from being born. Since it results in the delivery of an intact child, the abortion allows for carving up and selling the child's organs for profit. As Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical and Dental Society's Bioethics Commission puts it, this is "the inevitable logical progression of a society that, like Darwin, believes we came from nothing. When we fail to see life as sacred and ordained by God as unique, this is the reasonable conclusion... the inevitable slide down the slippery slope." Tonight's 20/20 broadcast will help bring this issue to light. If you can stomach it, you might want to watch. And if ABC does a good job, (we have not yet seen the broadcast), encourage them—they'll be under fire from the abortion lobby. And we need to register our concern with our congressional representatives. Tomorrow, Congress begins hearings on this monstrous industry. This practice must stop. Because the only thing more horrible than abortionists slaughtering babies is greasing their own palms with innocent blood. Useful resources: --Lynn Vincent, "Harvest of Shame." World Magazine (October 23, 1999).http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/10-23-99/cover_1.asp --Celeste McGovern, "Secrets of the Dead-baby Industry." Alberta Report (August 23, 1999).http://albertareport.com/volume26/990823/story1.html --Life Dynamics Incorporated, P.O. Box 2226, Denton, TX 76202

03/8/00