BBC News Online is reporting that the company ReNeuron has been given the go-ahead to use tissue taken from an aborted baby in a clinical trial for stroke. The report attempts to justify this absolutely abhorrent action, by glossing over the origin of the stem cells, with the headline “Stroke therapy assessed”. The truth is that this is no reputable report – it is about using an aborted baby brain in research – there can only be one response to this story – it is absolutely despicable and unacceptable. The scientist interviewed tries to justify it saying that it is only one child – what kind of appalling justification is this?
What kind of grotesque level of inhumanity has this country reached when an aborted baby’s body can be used in this despicable way, and scientists champion it as an exciting moment which may put Britain at the forefront of science? Has the regulator who approved this proposal and the scientists involved lost all sense of humanity and medical ethics?
There happens to be perfectly ethical sources of stem cells from bone marrow – but even if there were no ethical alternative, it will never be acceptable to use a baby’s body in this way. It is a disgusting form of cannibalism to kill a baby in a method which is designed to enable harvesting of its cells for research. We should be ending abortion altogether, not coming up with ever more despicable practices.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:33 pm
This is so appalling, I can’t believe it is being allowed. It’s horrifying that anyone can defend the practice of first killing an unborn baby, then harvesting its tissue and injecting the dead baby’s brain cells into a patient.
I don’t believe anyone should be allowed to do this. The media should report the details of it in full and there should be a widescale public debate, it shouldn’t just be presented as a decision that has been made, and reported in the media in euphemistic terms.
I’m totally in favour of medical research and treatment, but this isn’t legitimate research.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Show the public the horrifying sight of the 12 week old aborted baby, and let the public decide whether it is acceptable to use cells from the baby’s brain.
Those who say, ‘well the baby was killed anyway’, completely miss the point. We shouldn’t be aborting babies in the first place, but to kill the baby and then harvest the tissue and attempt to benefit from it, is horrific. No one should be allowed to benefit from the death of a child.
I’m on the organ donor register and very pro-ethical medical research but a basic component of this is that there should always be consent from the donor and that the tissue or organ donation should not involve any harm to the donor. In this case, the baby obviously cannot consent and the donation is obviously dependent on the death of the child.
It makes me shudder to think that society may justify abortions on the basis that the aborted baby can be used in research. How can we know in this instance that the woman was not influenced by the prospect of donating the aborted baby’s body? Was she told that the baby’s brain would be used?
January 21st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
It amazes me that people still continue to say that the baby is just a collection of cells at 12 weeks…. this report clearly shows that the baby has a brain at 12 weeks. How long before our parliamentarians wake up to the reality of abortion and massively restrict abortion if not banning it outright? We wouldn’t treat a baby with a brain after birth like this, so why is it acceptable to kill and use a baby’s brain for research before birth?
January 24th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
If people in this country don’t wake up to the truth, it can’t be long before born babies are allowed to be killed. The DNA is set from the moment of conception – what the person will be like, what he/she will be good at, etc.. No-one can say that that’s just a bundle of cells, and aborting the baby is just as bad as murder. I wait for the day that this cruelty will stop.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:53 am
These babies have already been aborted. They are no longer alive and now are nothing more tha discarded cells.
If tissue from an aborted baby can change the quality of life for millions of living people, doesn’t anyone else think it would be worth it?
February 11th, 2009 at 11:57 am
And also, the babies would have been aborted anyway and it is rediculous to propose that some mothers may even abort their babies just to give their bodies to science.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
I am a biochemistry student learning about new and exciting treatments such as this. If you were the ones suffering from illnesses and would be saved from this treatment I am positive you would accept it in a heartbeat. why shouldn’t we use these cells and the amazing potential they have? they were not used to become a child (numerous reasons I’m sure but I assume largely because the child’s quality of life would not have been acceptable for the parents – a choice they are quite within their rights to make), so why not use these cells to help others? If it was me and my ‘child’ used to save somebody else life, I would be extremely happy that something good could come from it.
March 15th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Katie and Sara – You see nothing wrong with using aborted baby’s bodies for research, but how can we on the one hand fight to save premature babies in one ward of a hospital but treat babies who are the same age or a little younger as spare parts? Why don’t these babies have the same human rights?
You say that the babies will be aborted anyway, but how does that justify using aborted babies in research? How can it be acceptable for society to benefit from the deliberate death of a baby?
Inevitably, if the option exists to donate the aborted baby’s body to research, it will coerce women who might otherwise go through with the pregnancy, to proceed with an abortion. That kind of pressure is totally unacceptable.
It cannot be acceptable, whatever claims are made, to destroy a child’s life. Nothing makes that acceptable. We would not accept any justification for killing a child after birth, so why before, when it is simply a matter of the child being younger?
Finally, if you check out the link below you will see that adult stem cells provide a totally ethical alternative – it’s a very exciting and vast resource of fascinating articles on adult stem cell breakthroughs which I urge you to check out:
http://www.stemcellresearch.org
April 24th, 2009 at 1:43 am
This is very good! My Gran had two strokes, so I suppose it’s close to my heart.
If unwanted, already aborted, unloved, useless pieces of tissue can be used to help those in need, then yay! And by useless I mean when it’s actually aborted.. there’s realy nothing you can do with an aborted fetus.. before anyone gets all angry at me..
Editor: It will not pressure women into having abortions. If a woman is ready to have a child and wants to have it, then she will. I doubt it’d be like ‘Oh wow I can use this aborted kid to help stroke victims, neato, I’ll just sign here and kill my baby!’. Women aren’t stupid.
As for saving babies of similar age, I doubt it. Abortions late enough for the child to survive are done rarely. 1% to be exact. I’ve seen people on here ignoring the 1% of abortions which are due to rape and incest, so lets do the same with the 1% after 20 weeks. Lets focus on the 90% done within 13 instead. So really.. they won’t be saving those of the same age in one ward and harvesting others in another.
For human rights.. I’m guessing those are given at birth rather than conception, judging by the fact that abortion isn’t legally considered murder, so obviously they aren’t given the same rights because they haven’t been born yet.
Anyway, I’m out.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Amy – stroke is terrible, but it cannot ever be right to take a human life and use it for spare parts. Surely we can all agree with that? We wouldn’t condone the death of a toddler and then using the toddler’s body to help someone who is ill, so how can we condone the killing of an unborn baby and using it in this way? We have to find other ways of helping people with stroke and other conditions. It is never right to kill another human being and benefit from their death.
You describe the baby’s aborted body as ‘unloved’, but there are huge numbers of people in this country who regard the baby as loved, and do not want it to be aborted.
I find your use of statistics unsettling. These are precious human lives we are talking about. It doesn’t matter how small a percentage it is of the total number of abortions (this is simply because the total number of abortions is so large), every single human life that is destroyed is wrong, whether it is one or several hundred.
You say yourself using an aborted baby’s body for research is ‘very good’ but then say women won’t be pressured into aborting babies – if you think that it is a good idea, then isn’t there a danger that other women will and it might sway their decision to have an abortion? This is appalling. We should work to eliminate abortion altogether, not allow any justification of it. It doesn’t matter how attractive it may be, benefiting from the deliberate killing of another human being is always wrong.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Editor: I kind of agree with you. I believe a fetus becomes a human life around 13 weeks, which is also the time I believe abortion should be cut down to. So, if someone had an abortion around 12 weeks and the fetus was used, then I don’t think it’s wrong.
I wouldn’t compare a toddler to a fetus either. That’s like comparing a tumor or a parasite to a toddler too.
How can you honestly feel love for a fetus in the womb of a woman you don’t even know? It’s impossible. If you truly loved that baby, you’d want it to have the best life possible, yes? Then why condone bringing it up in a place which doesn’t support it, nor love or want it? Sure adoption is there, but I doubt any woman would want to shove her child into a messed up system just to keep some unknown people happy. Even if she did, there’s alot of kids in there that haven’t gotten homes yet and are just being passed from home to home. Not very nice.
Oh and I’d suggest those people who supposedly ‘love’ unwanted babies to cough up with the money to pay for them.
Personally I don’t see the 90% as human lives, nor does the majority.
If a woman isn’t ready to have a baby, she isn’t. That’s all there is to it. If there’s a way those unwanted fetuses could be used to help actual lives, then that’s always a plus, but I doubt it will sway womens opinions. Hell, I’m 16 and if I got pregnant, I would be extremely confused about what to do, but this wouldn’t matter to me at all when making my decision. That coming from someone who had a loved one have two strokes and then die from a heart attack not long after.
Sorry if this doesn’t make any sense by the way, I’m tired tonight. =P
April 27th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Where does your statistic on rape and incest come from? The official statistics on abortion do not mention rape or incest at all.
On the subject of late abortions, one per cent is not a small number. Based on current abortion rates it is about 2,000 a year, which breaks down as 165 unborn babies a month. This is not a small number, and when you think of the pain those babies suffer, it is unthinkable.
April 28th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Rebecca: It was posted by another commenter on this article:
http://prolife.org.uk/abortion-instruments/
If everyone can avoid the 1% of rape/incest abortions and have the desire to force the baby on them, then why we can’t we avoid the 1% of late abortions too and stop using them to scare young girls into having children way before they should, or put fear and guilt into fully grown women?
As for the pain those unborn babies suffer, there’s no evidence to prove that fetuses feel pain anytime before 24 weeks.
“We conclude that, while the evidence suggests that foetuses have physiological reactions to noxious stimuli, it does not indicate that pain is consciously felt, especially not below the current upper gestational limit of abortion.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmsctech/1045/1045i.pdf
March 5th, 2010 at 1:25 am
Aborted babies aren’t developed babies, they are a small, maybe two week old bunch of cells that you can’t even see. Babies aren’t aborted for stem cell research, they are donated to stem cell research. So I fully support embryonic stem cell research.