Last summer a group called Center for Medical Progress released half a dozen videos in clear color images that show three things:
- Planned Parenthood employees interested in selling fetal tissue of aborted fetuses to a for-profit private company.
- PP employees making clear that it is a widespread practice in PP and that special tissue such as heart and brain is available.
- Video from two conferences of allied abortion providers working to create a central fetal tissue sales organization, including PP.
All the footage from these interviews was shown in edited form and also available online in the fully unedited form. A truly honest organization which was criticized by the corrupt press for using the edited versions.
None of the major media covered this story for one month and none carried it fully for three months. The story that was finally carried was about a Texas attorney general, known for his extreme Lefty legal actions, suing the Center for Medical Progress for using fictitious names to get the news stories. Clearly the Texas attorney general has never seen the weekly TV show 60 Minutes.
My issue here has nothing to do with selling fetal tissue or using government money to fund it. Someone else can deal with that and with the issue that money is fungible and can not be separated in one organization from the multiple activities of that organization.
My issue is the ethics of selling Mary Prague’s (fictitious name) aborted fetus parts without written permission from Mary. I don’t think it is ethical.
My argument relates to a set of court cases and federal law. The first is that of Henrietta Lacks who died in 1951 but her cancerous cell lines were saved to perpetuity and used in cancer research decades after she died. She never gave permission to use her tissue now known as HeLa cells.
In 2013 the National Institutes of Health, after several court cases, gave Henrietta’s family partial control over the use of the family DNA codes.
The second is federal law. If one wishes to have parts of his/her body used for research or for implants in other humans they must register on state organ donor lists. These lists must be checked before tissue or an organ is used for any purpose, research or transplant.
Taken together, these cases and law suggest to me that any use of Mary Prague’s body, whether removed by surgery or voluntarily expelled can not be used for any purpose without written consent from Mary.
Until that is done, Planned Parenthood and any other organization using fetal tissue is in violation of established American ethics. Someone should sue Planned Parenthood on this issue.