Abortion Lobby Is Back on Trial, as Legislators Once Again Hear the Case Against Fetal Tissue Trafficking and Experimentation
When it comes to fetal tissue research, the public deserves to know what sort of experiments scientists are conducting on their fellow man.
Nowhere is that more evident than the state of Pennsylvania.
In a Tuesday hearing centered around fetal experimentation, the Pennslyvania House Health Committee discussed the ethics of the practice, as well as the University of Pittsburgh’s alleged involvement in unethical experiments using the body parts of aborted babies.
The four witnesses at the hearing included a former abortionist, a Standford ethics professor, a University of Pittsburgh researcher and pro-life investigator David Daleiden.
The University’s Inhumane Experiments
Last December, The Western Journal discussed with Daleiden the university’s controversial fetal-scalping experiments, detailed in an article published by Scientific Reports. To create “humanized mice,” scientists scalped children aborted at 18 to 20 weeks gestation and transplanted their skin onto rodents.
This does not appear to be the only time the university was caught conducting ethically questionable fetal experiments, however.
Another report published in 2012 by the university’s experimental surgeon, Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach, described the process of harvesting livers from 18 to 22-week-old babies delivered alive in late-term abortions.
The Need for Transparency in Fetal Experimentation Practices
Given the nature of these experiments, Daleiden believes that government officials should use their oversight authority to prevent unethical projects or “outright criminality within the fetal trafficking and fetal experimentation space.”
“There’s a major need for — I think, certainly for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but I mean also for, you know, for many other states around the country — there’s a real need for people to get serious about abortion crime,” Daleiden told The Western Journal.
“And about enforcing the law against abortion crime.”
In 2014, Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress team uncovered what appears to be an illegal quid pro quo between the university and Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania for fetal body parts.
According to CMP, abortionists at PPWP supply the aborted fetuses and, in return, the University of Pittsburgh sponsors the abortion vendor’s operations.
In a video released the day before the hearing, the pro-life media organization elaborated on the university’s alleged procurement relationship with Planned Parenthood, noting that many Planned Parenthood abortion providers even sit on the university’s OB/GYN faculty.
The Western Journal reached out to the University of Pittsburgh via email to ask about its ties to Planned Parenthood but did not immediately receive a response.
The recent hearing, however, seemed like the ideal opportunity for legislators to demand transparency from the University of Pittsburgh about their fetal experiments, as well as the nature of their ties to the abortion industry.
Dr. Jeremy Rich, a neurologist and deputy director of research sent to testify on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh, could not answer specific questions related to fetal experimentation.
The choice of representative seems odd, as the doctor admitted that he is not even directly involved in the university’s fetal experiment projects. The doctor also testified that the university just hired him this past January.
To Daleiden, however, the fact that the University of Pittsburgh did not send a witness who could testify about the nature of its experiments is “very telling.”
“If the practices of infant scalping and live fetal liver harvesting and mass exportation of aborted baby kidneys, if these practices at the University of Pittsburgh were defensible, they would have sent someone who could actually defend them and who could actually talk about them, but they’re not,” Daleiden said.
“And so that’s why they’re hiding behind this — they’re hiding behind these fig leaves of, like, fall guys who don’t know anything because what they’re doing is not defensible.”
While the doctor seemed to lack knowledge about the key issue at the center of the hearing, Daleiden appeared to have no problem filling in the gaps.
During his testimony, the pro-life investigator emphasized numerous ethical concerns associated with fetal experimentation, starting with the exploitation of human beings — as seen in the University of Pittsburgh’s many research projects.
Daleiden also pointed out that using aborted body parts for research purposes creates a need for the material, incentivizing more abortions.
This not only leaves preborn children vulnerable to experimentation but renders questionable, even coercive, the process of obtaining consent for fetal tissue donation from abortion-minded patients.
How Fetal Experimentation Exploits the Vulnerable
When speaking with The Western Journal, Daleiden highlighted a 2020 report from the University of Pittsburgh, where researchers discussed the need to “ramp up” the fetal tissue obtained from patients.
As seen in the report, scientists appeared disappointed that they had only accrued approximately 300 fetal samples, a more than 50 percent decline from the previous year.
To the pro-life investigator, the report is indicative of the “market demand” for aborted body parts.
“And, you know, that’s especially concerning,” Daleiden said.
“Knowing that the burden of abortion and the burden of abortion incidents, especially later abortions that are valuable for fetal harvesting, disproportionately falls on, you know, poor low-income and minority women.”
“What does that say about the role of poor and minority communities in our country? That doesn’t sound like equality and respect and equal dignity to me,” the pro-life investigator added.
“That sounds like the strong preying on the weak.”
Even if someone does not consider themselves pro-life, Daleiden asked if those people would be comfortable with “outside demands and whims” influencing a pregnant woman’s abortion decision.
“And so even if it happens just once out of the 700 abortions that are harvested in one year at the University of Pittsburgh — even if it happens just one time to one family — that’s an irreparable harm that can never be taken back,” Daleiden said.
“They can never bring that child back to life. And they’ll have to live with that for the rest of their lives.”
If anything, the University of Pittsburgh’s fetal experiments serve as a reminder of the devastating cost of legalized abortion, and the violations of basic dignity that come with it.
The roughly 60 million children killed since “Roe v. Wade” were human beings and, regardless of their size or level of development, those tiny humans had bodies. They were more than mere test subjects — they were babies killed with poison, suction or dismemberment.
Society cannot afford to look away in the face of such tragedy, and Daleiden is absolutely right to call for a “public reckoning” regarding the experiments in Pittsburgh.
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