Fetal-Tissue Bans Are All About Making Abortion Providers Look Like Monsters

 Fetal-Tissue Bans Are All About Making Abortion Providers Look Like Monsters
Life-saving research is collateral damage in the war on Planned Parenthood.


A researcher works alongside a tray of vials containing cerebral spinal fluid. (AP Photo / Patrick Semansky)

If you think fetal-tissue research is wrong and should be banned, would you refuse to use any therapies that may come out of it? I thought not. I’ve posed this question to abortion opponents before, but so far, no one has said, Yes, Katha, I would rather let Alzheimer’s turn my brain into cottage cheese and ketchup than benefit from this diabolical practice. If I get Parkinson’s, HIV, breast cancer, diabetes, or the flu; if I go blind from macular degeneration; if I have a miscarriage, so be it. Treatments for those conditions are still being developed, but surprise! If you have been vaccinated for polio, mumps, measles, chicken pox, hepatitis, or rabies, it may be too late for you to stand your ethical ground: You have already benefited from fetal-tissue research. This is, after all, a practice that’s been legal since the 1930s. In 1954, John Enders, Thomas Weller, and Frederick Robbins won the Nobel Prize for work on the polio virus that paved the way for the Salk and Sabin vaccines. They used fetal tissue, the monsters. Should their heirs return the medals?

As has been noted with some glee, when Congress lifted President Reagan’s ban on federal funding for the research in 1993, plenty of Republicans voted yea. Among them were Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, Lamar Smith, and Fred Upton, who are now baying for Planned Parenthood’s blood in the wake of the videos secretly recorded by anti-choice activists—videos that do not, in fact, show Planned Parenthood officials killing babies to sell their “body parts.” Where did those gentlemen think the tissue would come from, if not abortion? (John Kasich, a congressman at the time, voted no, then as now hardly the “moderate Republican” depicted in the media.) It’s amusing to see them try to square that vote with their newfound abhorrence for what it legalized. “On viewing the video,” Upton wrote in July, “the contents can’t help but make you weep for the innocents who were sacrificed in such a cavalier manner for alleged profit.” So if Planned Parenthood lost money on fetal tissue, it would be okay to “harvest” it? As long as nobody got graphic about it over wine and salad?


Of course not. This isn’t about fetal tissue. It’s about abortion. It’s about showing those bloody pictures and making providers look greedy and heartless. Fetal-tissue research is collateral damage in the war against Planned Parenthood, and it has already been banned or severely restricted in six states. Nebraska and Wyoming ban the transfer of fetal tissue, and New Jersey and California are considering laws that would limit suppliers’ ability to recover costs. In August, Arizona governor Doug Ducey issued a temporary rule requiring abortion clinics to report the destination of fetal tissue to state health officials. North Carolina has just passed a bill criminalizing the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses (already illegal under federal law). For good measure, the same bill defunds Planned Parenthood’s teen-pregnancy-prevention programs. According to state legislator Larry Pittman, the organization distributes contraceptives that “don’t work” in order to “get more business.” This is what we are dealing with, people.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin state legislature is debating not just banning the sale of fetal tissue (already illegal, see above) but making research using tissue from any fetus aborted after January 1, 2015, a felony. Leading the charge in the Assembly is Tea Partier André Jacque, who in a previous session proposed an amendment to the state constitution recognizing fertilized eggs as people. Like many opponents of Planned Parenthood, Jacque pooh-poohs the importance of fetal tissue. “If aborted fetal tissue is available, [researchers] don’t feel that they need to try an alternative. They’re going with the most convenient, the laziest route.”

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http://www.thenation.com/article/fetal-tissue-bans-are-all-about-making-abortion-providers-look-like-monsters/