Human beings are not commodities to be used
A few days ago, we learned that the remains of a child who had been killed in the MOVE bombing in 1985 were used by anthropologists at Penn and Princeton in connection with some courses.
While there is some evidence that several forensic pathologists attempted to connect the remains to a victim of the bombing, it’s clear that not enough was done to honor the fact that these were the bones of a crime victim. We don’t even need to go that far. These were the bones of a human being, and should have been treated with some level of respect beyond their “use” for educational purposes.
The outcry over the revelation is completely justified, as was the anger from the relatives of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells were used -without her permission - for generations of scientific research. People are not products, and unless they have given permission or donated their bodies to science, they should never be abused in this disrespectful manner with the justification of “well, we are contributing to the advancement of mankind.”
The child who died in the MOVE massacre never had the opportunity to consent. Neither did Lacks, the victim of a cancer which killed her at the premature age of 31.
Much was made of the fact that Lacks was a Black woman, and the child killed in the MOVE bombing was also Black. Some have tried to make this about race, which is not surprising in this day and age. But even if the victims were white, the use of their body parts in “research” is repellent. Race is irrelevant.
What matters using humans guinea pigs.
So imagine my disgust when I learned that the Obama-Biden administration had purchased fetal tissue and organs from aborted fetuses to use in medical research. The most abhorrent aspect is that tax dollars were used to purchase the organs and tissue. This information was uncovered by an organization called Justice Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request.
According to a report at LifeSite news, “Multiple documents show FDA requests for organs from aborted babies between 16 and 24 weeks of pregnancy. In other words, taxpayers paid for the body parts of babies who were capable of feeling intense pain and quite possibly could have survived outside the womb.”
The article goes on to report that the Federal Drug Administration specified that the organs should be “free of known chromosomal abnormalities” and “fresh never frozen,” so that they could be used in experiments involving “humanized mice.”
Leave aside the whole “Island of Dr. Moreau” scenario of human cells being grafted onto animals for medical research. The idea that our tax dollars were used to purchase, in bulk, organs from viable babies is something that even I, who’ve written about abortion for decades, can’t adequately process.
When you hear the words, “fresh never frozen,” you think of something that is as
was on display at Trader Joe’s as the weekly poultry special, not the organs of a child.
Some readers will object to the use of the words “baby” and “child,” because they don’t like humanizing what to them should be considered a pre-human entity. I won’t even worry about their objections, because they’re superficial and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Although I believe words matter, and I will continue to use the term “pro-abortion” as opposed to “pro-choice,” this particular case transcends verbal swordplay.
We are dealing with a situation where the United States government contracted to purchase the remains of human fetuses that, in most cases, were the results of elective
abortions and that, in most cases, could have survived outside of the womb. While the misuse and abuse of the bones of that tragic MOVE child and the cells of Henrietta Lacks is ethically repellent, what the Obama administration did takes it to a whole new level. Let us call it the “Mengelevel.”
When President Trump took office, he terminated public funding for this type of research. However, as soon as President Obama’s vice president Joe Biden took office, he removed the ban. That means your money, and my own, could be used to purchase livers and other useful materials derived from the tragic demise of future children.
When questioned about this last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had this to say: “We
believe that it’s important to invest in science and look for opportunities to cure diseases, and that’s what I think this is hopeful to do.”
One wonders if she would have had the same reaction to the use of the MOVE child’s bones by two Ivy League schools. One would be justified in doubting that the Biden administration, which has now freed up tax dollars for research involving aborted baby parts, would support using the bones of a dead child as a way to “invest in education.”
Hypocrisy abounds in these matters. We are disgusted, rightfully so, at the indiscriminate and unauthorized use of body parts to advance some societal interest. But many of the people who were
horrified at the MOVE and Lacks stories don’t bat an eyelid at the use of abortion as a source of “research.” One woman told me that the government had permission to use the fetal organs, because the mothers who had the abortions signed consent forms.
Legally true. disgusting.
A world that looks at humans as commodities before birth and after death should not be surprised at the inhumane way we treat others during our finite moments on earth.
Morally