The dark side of biotech: expert details grisly fate of fetal body parts

The dark side of biotech: expert details grisly fate of fetal body parts | LifeSiteNews.com: Dr. Theresa Deisher, a molecular and cellular physiologist and an internationally-recognized expert in regenerative medicine, explored the routine “commoditizing” of unborn human beings in modern biotechnology in a speech in Washington, DC, on Friday. She noted that an article in the Puget Sound Business Journal discovered that the University of Washington filled out more than 4,400 requests for fresh fetal body parts from fetal tissue for the purpose of biomedical research in 2009, the first time hard numbers of such transactions were uncovered.

The scientist also noted that plenty of scientific literature, available on the Internet, discusses the optimal age for a child’s death in order to obtain useful body parts: one such professional noted that the best heart tissue is obtained from a child of 22 weeks’ gestation.

In addition to research, Deisher said the bodies of unborn children are being used “as not only biomedical research tools, but as actual medical therapies.” “Fetuses 12, 14, 16, 18 weeks gestation are ground up and their cells are implanted in people who have had strokes or Parkinson’s disease,” she said.

Another ethical battlefield involves the use of cell lines derived from aborted children. Contrary to popular belief, today’s fetal stem cell lines derive from not one, but several abortions - many of them in the second trimester - and will have to be replaced with fresh victims as they are only useful for about 30 to 35 years, said the scientist. Fetal cell line vaccines such as measles-mumps-rubella, chicken pox, and hepatitis A are not only morally problematic, said Deisher, but their use has a dramatic correlation with an epidemic on the rise: autism.