6 DEC 93
I am monitoring the PD area for a friend with the disease in
Kansas City, and forwarding informative messages to him. (He does
not have direct access to internet).
In a recent message, the following statement was made . . .
> Most groups feel that the most unethical situation is to allow
> fetal tissue from voluntary abortions to be wasted, rather than used
> to alleviate human suffering.
I'm reluctant to talk about the following subject, because I doubt
anyone on this list wants to hear it. Some of you might also say
that I shouldn't make this post, because it isn't supportive of
fetal tissue research, which is helpful to PD patients. And yet,
if there is validity to what I am about to talk about, I don't
really believe that readers of this list really want to be
excluded from this debate.
Recently I received some information on fetal tissue harvesting
from a group that was admittedly opposed to the procedure. What
concerned me about this information, which I cannot verify
although I've tried, was the description of the process allegedly
used by physicians to obtain the fetal tissue during an abortion.
I won't repeat the detailed discription here, because it is quite
shocking. If similar procedures were performed on animals, the
ASPCA would go ballistic. In essence, the claim was made that the
tissue was harvested from a still living fetus that was not
anesthesized, midway through the birthing process, thereby
bringing about the death of the fetus, but preserving the quality
of the harvested fetal tissue.
What was most bothersome was that the description of the procedure
was quite plausible, given the very real conflicting needs to
maintain the viability of the fetal tissue (similar to difficulty
with donor organs harvested from cadavers) combined with laws that
require a physician to attempt to keep alive any fetus that is
delivered alive.
If someone has some definitive information (not speculation) that
refutes this claim, I welcome a counterpost. If the claims that I
saw are true, it seems to create a legitimate ethical dilemma on
this procedure, in that the harvesting of the fetal tissue results
in a substantial change to the procedures used for elective
abortions.
--
Terry Quinn
Germantown Hills, IL
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