[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1426]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BABIES AS MEDICAL PRODUCTS

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                           HON. HENRY J. HYDE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 29, 1999

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, John Kass, a thoughtful columnist for the 
Chicago Tribune, on June 28, 1999, wrote an important column about a 
development in modern medicine that has the most serious consequences 
for the value of human life. I commend Mr. Kass' article to my 
colleagues:

               [From the Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1999]

       Draw the Line Now Against Using Babies as Medical Products

                             (By John Kass)

       It's an ugly twist on an old science fiction theme:
       Would you use the body parts of an innocent baby so that 
     you could live a happier life?
       Would you support a system of incentives to kill other 
     babies, and process them like meat at a packing plant, for 
     the benefit of a frightened Baby Boom generation terrified of 
     Alzheimer's disease and death?
       Of course not. The suggestion is monstrous and 
     dehumanizing. By comparison, it makes what the Serbs and 
     Albanians are doing to each other look like a gentle game.
       But the science fiction scenario doesn't generate the 
     terrifying passions of old Balkan blood feuds.
       Instead, it's calculated, without anger, and practiced by 
     reasonable men and women in white lab coats.
       It's about pure reason, efficiency and scientific 
     rationalism. It's what a culture can do when it loses its 
     soul. If you don't believe me, ask a Jew about the Nazi 
     concentration camps.
       So get horrified. Because it's not science fiction. It's 
     happening now, in our country.
       I read about it in Sunday's Tribune, in a fascinating story 
     by science writer Ronald Kotulak under the headline ``Stem 
     cells opening path to brain repair.''
       It began with an anecdote about a woman with Parkinson's 
     disease. Her name is Dr. Jacqueline Winterkorn. The drugs she 
     was taking to fight the disease weren't working anymore.
       ``It's a very sad disease,'' Dr. Winterkorn was quoted as 
     saying. ``People are locked into bodies that don't move. 
     Their brains are working, their minds are working, but they 
     can't talk and they can't move.
       In other words, they're human beings immobilized through no 
     fault of their own, trapped without speech. They have 
     emotions, but they can't do anything about it. They're 
     helpless.
       Like a fetus.
       But Dr. Winterkorn's condition began improving, the story 
     said, after she was given millions of new brain stem cells 
     because her own brain cells weren't doing their jobs. Her 
     brain cells weren't producing enough dopamine to control her 
     movements.
       The new brain stem cells worked just fine. They produced 
     dopamine in her brain. She improved. The scientists are 
     thrilled.
       ``The prospect of repairing a damaged brain is pretty 
     remarkable,'' said Dr. Curt Freed, who did the study. ``It 
     has been possible to show significant improvements in some 
     patients who suffered from a chronic neurologic disease for 
     an average of 14 years.''
       But there is a price for Dr. Freed's success. The new brain 
     cells have to come from somewhere. And they don't come from 
     pigs.
       They come from fetuses, which is a polite way of saying 
     they come from tiny human beings. The tiny human beings 
     didn't willingly give up their brains. Nobody asked them to 
     sign papers donating their bodies to science.
       They didn't have much say in the matter. They were aborted.
       The National Institutes of Health--which means the federal 
     government--has lifted its ban on the use of human fetal 
     cells and is bankrolling several other similar studies.
       Meanwhile, the White House worries that video games cheapen 
     human life and make possible massacres like the one in 
     Littleton, Colo.
       Courts and abortion rights advocates have said that what 
     grows in a mother's womb is not a human being. You don't say 
     baby. That's impolite. You say ``it,'' because that makes a 
     human being easier to kill.
       The debate over abortion is an old one now. Most folks have 
     settled into their positions and defend them vigorously. 
     That's not going to change.
       What's changing is that we're progressing to a civilized 
     new stage--turning human beings into valuable commodities--in 
     which the bodies of the helpless are used to improve the 
     lives of the powerful.
       And it's being done in the name of cold scientific reason. 
     The rhetorical pathway was cleared years ago, when the 
     Germans built Buchenwald and Auschwitz and other places.
       Soon other folks with Parkinson's or other brain disorders 
     such as Alzheimer's disease will seek such treatments. The 
     Baby Boom generation that has never been denied will make its 
     demands.
       It's human nature to use available resources to satisfy the 
     most powerful human need: staying alive.
       So aborted human babies will become resources. They'll 
     become products, subjected to the market. Because they'll 
     have value, there will be an incentive to provide more. Their 
     bodies will be served up for the benefit of adults.
       If we don't stop it now, if we accept this crime in the 
     name of scientific reason, we'll lose ourselves.
       Ask a mother carrying a child inside her. Ask her if it's 
     not human. Ask any father who puts his hand on his expectant 
     wife's belly and feels a tiny foot.
       In a few weeks, they're out and looking up to you. They 
     grab your finger. You kiss their necks. Someday, when they're 
     old enough, they might ask you what fetal brain stem cell 
     research is all about.
       What will you tell them?

       

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