The recent disclosure that vaccines were produced from tissues of aborted babies had three main pro-life reactions: the immediate one of repugnance; the second, “why were we not told?” the third, “what experimentation that we don’t know about is going on now?” The answer to the last question is that human vivisection of live aborted babies is almost commonplace, even though it is in violation of international guidelines such as the Nuemberg Code.
Published research from the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, 1973-76, described how 213 fetuses (of up to 25 weeks gestation) were aborted by hysterotomy and subjected “immediately” to heart puncture to obtain cardiac-blood samples. Then, “without delay” their adrenals, gonads, testes, and pituitary glands (for which the head must be opened) were removed. The Manitoba Physicians for Life stated: “There is every reason to believe that many, if not all, of these fetuses were alive at the time of delivery. There is thus every reason to believe that the procedures to which they were immediately subjected did, in fact, cause their deaths.” 213 babies were used as specimens for this human vivisection.
Attempts to get an independent enquiry were stonewalled by the Manitoba government. The researchers’ claim that the babies were already dead was met by less-than-polite disbelief or downright denial by expert neonatologists in Canada, the USA and New Zealand. The national media, their attention firmly fixed on baby seals, ignored this human vivisection, and in a similar fashion refused to notice the experiments of the Stanford University doctor which included “slicing open the rib cage of a still-living human fetus (new-born baby) in order to observe the heart action.”
How much press or television coverage did Dr. Martii Kekomaki receive in 1980? His research in Finland was intended to enhance the survival rate of premature infants. To this end, he fed nutrients from the decapitated brains of 52 children aborted by hysterotomy, and is quoted as saying, “the fetuses were fully alive when we cut their heads off, but anaesthetics are definitely unnecessary.” He discounts the solid medical evidence that the human fetus feels pain by at least the end of twelve weeks and maybe at nine.
News that research on aborted babies has been conducted at Notre Dame University, Indiana, shocked pro-lifers. Whether the supply of babies was a “gift” or a purchase from an abortion clinic or hospital is not clear, but either transaction is anathema to us. The scientists (and even some theologians) rationalize the use of these aborted babies by saying they were already dead, but there is the sworn testimony of an anaesthetist in Pittsburgh who said: “It was repulsive to watch live fetuses (premature infants) being packed in ice while still moving and trying to breathe, then being rushed to a laboratory.”
Medical research is undoubtedly important, but not at the price of the mutilation of tiny bodies, and agonizing deaths of our smallest and most helpless babies.
