Anti-abortion rally targets UNM
Research conducted ‘ethically, lawfully,’ health sciences boss says
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn,, chairwoman of the House Select Panel on Infant Lives, was the featured speaker at a Wednesday news conference and rally in which she maintained that the University of New Mexico and Southwest Women’s Options were in violation of state and federal laws regulating abortions and the harvesting of fetal tissue for research.
Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, alleges that some abortion providers receive money for selling fetal tissue, an issue that was “at the core of our investigation,” she said. “To receive even one penny of profit is a 10-year felony offense.”
The select panel, she said, issued about 40 subpoenas and 15 criminal referrals to state attorneys general — two of them
to New Mexico. The members of the panel also released a 471-page report about their investigation.
What Blackburn neglected to say was that only the eight Republican members of the select panel signed off on the report; the six Democrats on the panel took issue with the Republicans’, and specifically Blackburn’s, conclusions.
In a letter sent to New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas in July, and later publicly released, the Democrats said they were “deeply concerned that Chair Blackburn is using her power of the Congress to chase unfounded allegations of anti-abortion extremists.” Blackburn, they added, had used her “unilateral subpoena authority to investigate the claims of these groups,” and then “suppressed the facts” and sent criminal referrals “without acknowledging sworn testimony that rebuts these unfounded theories.”
Despite that, Balderas and Chancellor Paul Roth of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center were in the bull’s-eye during the Wednesday anti-abortion gathering outside UNM’s Hodgin Hall. Speaker after speaker, including Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., called on UNM to fully disclose its relationship with abortion clinic Southwestern Women’s Options and the university’s acquisitions of aborted fetal tissue from that clinic.
The Rev. Stephen Imbarrato, a Catholic priest and anti-abortion activist, told the crowd of about 150, which included a sizable and vocal number of abortion rights protesters, that Balderas should investigate the allegations leveled against UNM and Southwestern Women’s Options “or be removed from office.” He also called Roth “the driving force behind the entire abortion cartel” in the state.
Elisa Martinez, executive director of the New Mexico Alliance for Life, said, “Thousands of New Mexico women have had their rights violated and not received a lawful and valid consent form to donate their infants’ body parts.” That practice has been going on for at least 10 years, she maintained.
Citing the state Maternal Fetal Infant Experimentation Act, Martinez said women should be clearly informed about which fetal tissue is to be donated, and about the nature and benefits of the fetal research. That consent should be provided in separate documentation, rather than buried in a clause in the consent form to abort a pregnancy, she said.
In response to the Wednesday news conference, Balderas spokesman James Hallinan said, “We are actively working on gathering further information that will assist in our ongoing review of this matter.”
Roth issued a statement saying the Health Sciences Center “has conducted our research, educational and clinical activities ethically, lawfully and transparently.” Further, he said, the Health Sciences Center “categorically denies ever having bought or sold fetal tissue; nor has it made any reimbursement for the tissue it has received from women who consented to donate it for research purposes.”
The university has “diligently” cooperated with the House Select Panel on Infant Lives and the state Attorney General’s Office, he said.