US analysis staff graft aborted infants’ pores and skin onto rodents

US researchers caused outrage after grafting skin from aborted babies into mice and rats in laboratory experiments.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with the private animal testing company Hera Biolabs, used skin from the scalp and back of babies who were aborted between 18 and 20 weeks of pregnancy to create “humanized rodents.”

While the research program isn’t illegal, in 2019 the U.S. government cut federal funding for research that uses tissue from aborted babies.

‘Crimes Against Humanity’

The results of the research were published in the journal Nature last year, which explained how “humanized” mouse and rat models with “full-thickness human skin” and “immune cells” were made from “unidentified human fetal tissue”. were used to study human diseases.

According to the report, the baby tissue used in the experiments came from “medically indicated or elective” abortions at the university’s own medical center, but only after the mothers had given them the “written informed consent”.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Tyler, Texas described them as “crimes against humanity”.

Ethical review

In February 2020, the U.S. government, under the Trump administration, established the National Institutes of Health’s Ethics Advisory Panel for research on human fetal tissue.

The board is now reviewing all federal funding requests for medical research using tissue from aborted babies. Since its inception, it has refused to fund all but one submission.

Science Magazine reports that “at least 10 of the 15 board members have publicly opposed abortion, fetal tissue research, human embryonic stem cell research, contraception, or a combination thereof.”

“Small Body”

Paige Comstock Cunningham, Pro-Life Chairman of the Board of Directors, said in 2016: “The fetus, as a uniquely vulnerable and dependent human person, deserves the same (or even increased) protection that modern declarations and codes of medical ethics impose on all human subjects of research. “

She added that rather than being a “lesser” form of human life, the fetus “is a separate human being at a certain stage of development.

We should not try to restore our own bodies at the expense of using the tiny bodies of others

“As such, she is not a potential person, but an actual person whose life should not be intentionally ended with violence.”

In her then written submission to a committee of the US House of Representatives, she also said, “We should not try to restore our own bodies at the expense of using the tiny bodies of others whose only offense was to grow in ‘. wrong womb at the wrong time. As a people we deserve better, and as a nation we are called to be better. “

See also:

US Supreme Court ends Post-DIY Abortion Pill Service

Cuts in US funding for abortion groups have not harmed women’s health

US Poll: Opposition to Abortion Pills Grows After Learning How They Work