[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 163 (Wednesday, November 17, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2406-E2407]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E2406]]
                          HOUSE RESOLUTION 350

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 16, 1999

  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, the House passage of H. Res. 350 advanced 
the firm position of the Congress in contradiction to the practice of 
trafficking in baby body parts for profit.
  The topic, sir, is among the most ghastly imaginable. America's 
traditions of life and liberty are certainly challenged by procedures 
required to support such a barbaric trade as that addressed by the 
Resolution.
  As further support for our efforts, I hereby, commend to the House an 
article delivered to me by Mrs. Kay Schrapel of Greeley, CO. Mrs. 
Schrapel requested I share this report with all Members and to fully 
honor and fulfill her humble request, I hereby submit the text of the 
report for the Record.

    [Reprinted By Permission, For Personal Distribution, by WORLD, 
                     Asheville, NC, Oct. 23, 1999]

                        The Harvest of Abortion

                           (By Lynn Vincent)

       WARNING: This story contains some graphic detail.
       As Monday morning sunshine spills across the high plains of 
     Aurora, Colo., and a new work week begins, fresh career 
     challenges await Ms. Ying Bei Wang. On Monday, for example, 
     she might scalpel her way through the brain stem of an 
     aborted 24-week-pre-born child, pluck the brain from the 
     baby's peach-sized head with forceps, and plop it into wet 
     ice for later shipment. On Tuesday, she might carefully slice 
     away the delicate tissue that secures a dead child's eyes in 
     its skull, and extract them whole. Ms. Ying knows her 
     employer's clients prefer the eyes of dead babies to be 
     whole. One once requested to receive 4 to 10 per day.
       Although she works in Aurora at an abortion clinic called 
     the Mayfair Women's Center, Ms. Ying is employed by the 
     Anatomic Gift Foundation (AGF), a Maryland-based nonprofit. 
     AGF is one of at least five U.S. organizations that collect, 
     prepare, and distribute to medical researchers fetal tissue, 
     organs, and body parts that are the products of voluntary 
     abortions.
       When ``Kelly,'' a woman who claimed to have been an AGF 
     ``technician'' like Ms. Ying, approached Life Dynamics in 
     1997, the pro-life group launched an undercover 
     investigation. The probe unearthed grim, hard-copy evidence 
     of the cross-country flow of baby body parts, including 
     detailed dissection orders, a brochure touting ``the freshest 
     tissue available,'' and price lists for whole babies and 
     parts. One 1999 price list from a company called Opening 
     Lines reads like a cannibal's wish list: Skin $100. Limbs (at 
     least 2) $150. Spinal cord $325. Brain $999 (30% discount if 
     significantly fragmented).
       The evidence confirmed what pro-life bioethicists have long 
     predicted: the nadir-bound plummet of respect for human 
     life--and the ascendancy of death for profit.
       ``It's the inevitable logical progression of a society 
     that, like Darwin, believes we came from nothing,'' notes 
     Gene Rudd, an obstetrician and member of the Christian 
     Medical and Dental Society's Bioethics Commission. ``When we 
     fail to see life as sacred and ordained by God as unique, 
     this is the reasonable conclusion . . . taking whatever's 
     available to gratify our own self-interests and taking the 
     weakest of the species first . . . like jackals. This is the 
     inevitable slide down the slippery slope.''
       In 1993, President Clinton freshly greased that slope. 
     Following vigorous lobbying by patient advocacy groups, Mr. 
     Clinton signed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 
     Revitalization Act, effectively lifting the ban on federally 
     funded research involving the transplantation of fetal 
     tissue. For medical and biotech investigators, it was as 
     though the high government gate barring them from Research 
     Shangri-La had finally been thrown open. Potential cures for 
     Parkinson's, AIDS, and cancer suddenly shimmered in the 
     middle distance. The University of Washington in Seattle 
     opened an NIH-funded embryology laboratory that runs a round-
     the-clock collection service at abortion clinics. NIH itself 
     advertised (and still advertises) its ability to ``supply 
     tissue from normal or abnormal embryos and fetuses of desired 
     gestational ages between 40 days and term.''
       But, this being the land of opportunity, fetal-tissue 
     entrepreneurs soon emerged to nip at NIH's well-funded heels. 
     Anatomic Gift Foundation, Opening Lines, and at least two 
     other companies--competition AGF representatives say they 
     know of, but decline to name--joined the pack. Each firm 
     formed relationships with abortion clinics. Each also 
     furnished abortionists with literature and consent forms for 
     use by clinic counselors in making women aware of the option 
     to donate their babies' bodies to medical science. According 
     to AGF executive director Brent Bardsley, aborting mothers 
     are not approached about tissue donation until after they've 
     signed a consent to abort.
       Ironically, it is the babies themselves that are referred 
     to as ``donors,'' as though they had some say in the matter. 
     Such semantic red flags--and a phalanx of others--have 
     bioethicists hotly debating the issue of fetal-tissue 
     research: Does the use of the bodies of aborted children for 
     medical research amount to further exploitation of those who 
     are already victims? Will the existence of fetal-tissue 
     donation programs persuade more mothers that abortion is an 
     acceptable, even altruistic, option? Since abortion is legal 
     and the human bodies are destined to be discarded anyway, 
     does it all shake out as a kind of ethical offset, mitigating 
     the abortion holocaust with potential good?
       While the ethical debate rages in air-conditioned 
     conference rooms, material obtained by Life Dynamics points 
     up what goes on in abortion clinic labs: the cutting up and 
     parting out of dead children. The fate of these smallest 
     victims is chronicled in more than 50 actual dissection 
     orders or ``protocols'' obtained by the activist group. The 
     protocols detail how requesting researchers want baby parts 
     cut and shipped: ``Dissect fetal liver and thymus and 
     occasional lymph node from fetal cadaver within 10 (minutes 
     of death).'' ``Arms and legs not be intact.'' ``Intact brains 
     preferred, but large pieces of brain may be usable.''
       Most researchers want parts harvested from fetuses 18 to 24 
     weeks in utero, which means the largest babies lying in lab 
     pans awaiting a blade would stretch 10 to 12 inches--from 
     your wrist to your elbow. Some researchers append a subtle 
     ``plus'' sign to the ``24,'' indicating that parts from late-
     term babies would be acceptable. Many stipulate ``no 
     abnormalities,'' meaning the baby in question should have 
     been healthy prior to having her life cut short by 
     ``intrauterine cranial compression'' (crushing of the skull).
       On one protocol dated 1991, August J. Sick of San Diego-
     based Invitrogen Corporation requested kidneys, hearts, 
     lungs, livers, spleens, pancreases, skin, smooth muscle, 
     skeletal muscle and brains from unborn babies of 15-22 seeks 
     gestational age. Mr. Sick wanted ``5-10 samples of each per 
     month.'' WORLD called Mr. Sick to verify that he had indeed 
     order the parts. (He had.) When WORLD pointed out that 
     Invitrogen's request of up to 100 samples per month would 
     mean a lot of dead babies, Mr. Sick--sounding quite shaken--
     quickly aborted the interview.
       Many of the dissection orders provide details of research 
     projects in which the fetal tissue will be used. Most, in the 
     abstract, are medically noble, with goals like conquering 
     AIDS or creating ``surfactants,'' substances that would 
     enable premature babies to breathe independently.
       Other research applications are chilling. For example, R. 
     Paul Johnson from Massachusetts' New England Regional Primate 
     Research Center requested second-trimester fetal livers. His 
     1995 protocol notes that the livers will be used ultimately 
     for ``primate implantation,'' including the ``creation of 
     human-monkey chimeras.'' In biology, a chimera is an organism 
     created by the grafting or mutation of two genetically 
     different cell types.
       Another protocol is up-front about the researchers' profit 
     motive. Systemix, a California-based firm wanted aborting 
     mothers to know that any fetal tissue donated ``is for 
     research purposes which may lead to commercial 
     applications.''
       That leads to the money trail.
       Life Dynamics' investigation uncovered the financial 
     arrangement between abortionists and fetal-parts providers. 
     The Uniform Anatomic Gift Act makes it a federal crime to buy 
     or sell fetal tissue. So entities involved in the collection 
     and transfer of fetal parts operate under a documentary 
     rubric that, while technically lawful, looks distinctly like 
     a legal end-around: AGF, for example, pays the Mayfair 
     Women's Center for the privilege of obtaining fetal tissue. 
     Researchers pay AGF for the privilege of receiving fetal 
     tissue. But all parties claim there is no buying or selling 
     of fetal tissue going on.
       Instead, AGF representatives maintain that Mayfair 
     ``donates'' dead babies to AGF. Researchers then compensate 
     AGF for the cost of the tissue recovery. It's a service fee, 
     explains AGF executive director Brent Bardsley: compensation 
     for services like dissection, blood tests, preservation, and 
     shipping.
       Money paid by fetal-tissue providers to abortion clinics is 
     termed a ``site fee,'' and does not, Mr. Bardsely maintains, 
     pay for baby parts harvested. Instead the fee compensates 
     clinics for allowing technicians like Ms. Ying to work on-
     site retrieving and dissecting dead babies--sort of a 
     Frankensteinian sublet.
       ``It's clearly a fee-for-space arrangement,'' says Mr. 
     Bardsley. ``We occupy a portion of their laboratory, use 
     their clinic supplies, have a phone line installed. The site 
     fee offsets the use of clinic supplies that we use in tissue 
     procurement.''
       According to Mr. Bardsley, fetal-tissue recovery accounts 
     for only about 10 percent of AGF's business. The rest 
     involves the recovery and transfer to researchers of non-
     transplantable organs and tissue from adult donors. But, in 
     spite of the fact that AGF recovers tissue from all 50 
     states, Mr. Bardsley could not cite for WORLD an instance in 
     which AGF pays a ``site fee'' to hospital morgues or funeral 
     homes for the privilege of camping on-site to retrieve adult 
     tissue.
       Mr. Bardsley, a trained surgical technician, seems like a 
     friendly guy. On the phone he sounds reasonable, intelligent, 
     and sincere about his contention that AGF isn't involved in 
     the fetal-tissue business for the money.
       ``We have a lot of pride in what we do,'' he says. ``We 
     think we make a difference with

[[Page E2407]]

     research and researchers' accessibility to human tissue. 
     Every time you go to a drug store, the drugs on the shelf are 
     there as a result of human tissue donation. You can't perfect 
     drugs to be used in human beings using animals models.''
       AGF operates as a nonprofit and employs fewer than 15 
     people. Mr. Bardsley's brother Jim and Jim's wife Brenda 
     founded the organization in 1994. The couple had previously 
     owned a tissue-recovery organization called the International 
     Institute for the Advancement of Medicine (IIAM), which had 
     also specialized in fetal-tissue redistribution, counting, 
     for example, Mr. Sick among its clients. But when IIAM's 
     board of directors decided to withdraw from involvement with 
     fetal tissue, the Bardsleys spun off AGF--specifically to 
     continue providing fetal tissue or researchers.
       Significantly, AFG opened in 1994, the year after President 
     Clinton shattered the fetal-tissue research ban. Since then, 
     the company's revenues have rocketed from $180,000 to $2 
     million in 1998. Did the Bardsleys see a market niche that 
     was too good to pass up? Brenda Bardsley, who is now AFG 
     president, says no. AGF's economic windfall, she says, is 
     related to the company's expansion into adult donations, not 
     the transfer of fetal tissue. She says she and her husband 
     felt compelled to continue providing the medical community 
     with a source of fetal tissue ``because of the research that 
     was going on.''
       ``Abortion is legal, but tragic. We see what we're doing as 
     trying to make the best of a bad situation,'' Mrs. Bardsley 
     told WORLD. ``We don't encourage abortion, but we see that 
     good can come from fetal-tissue research. There is so much 
     wonderful research going on--research that can help save the 
     lives of wanted children.''
       Mrs. Bardsley says she teaches her own children that 
     abortion is wrong. A Deep South transplant with a brisk. East 
     coast accent. Mrs. Bardsley and her family attend a Southern 
     Baptist church near their home on the Satilla River in White 
     Oak, GA. Mrs. Bardsley homeschools her three children using, 
     she says, a Christian curriculum: ``I've been painted as this 
     monster, but here I am trying to give my kids a Christian 
     education,'' she says, referring to other media coverage of 
     AGF's fetal-parts enterprise.
       Mrs. Bardsley says she's prayed over whether her business 
     is acceptable in God's sight, and has ``gotten the feeling'' 
     that it is. She also, she says, reads the Bible ``all the 
     time.'' And though she can't cite a chapter and verse that 
     says it's OK to cut and ferry baby parts, she points out that 
     God commands us to love one another. For Mrs. Bardsley, 
     aiding medical research by supplying fetal parts qualifies.
       If they were in it for the money rather than for the good 
     of mankind, says Mrs. Bardsley, AGF could charge much higher 
     prices for fetal tissue than it does, because research demand 
     is so high.
       The issue of demand is one of several points on which the 
     testimonies of Mrs. Bardsley and her brother-in-law Brent 
     don't jibe. He says demand for fetal tissue ``isn't all that 
     high.'' She says demand for fetal tissue is ``so high, we 
     could never meet it.'' He says ``only a small percentage'' of 
     aborting moms consent to donate their babies' bodies. She 
     says 75 percent of them consent. He says AGF charges only for 
     whole bodies, and doesn't see how the body-parts company 
     Opening Lines could justify charging by the body part. She 
     says AGF charges for individual organs and tissue based on 
     the company's recovery costs.
       Founded by pathologist Miles Jones, Opening Lines was, 
     until recently, based in West Frankfort, Ill. According to 
     its brochure, Opening Lines' parent company, Consultative and 
     Diagnostic Pathology, Inc., processes an average of 1,500 
     fetal-tissue cases per day. While AGF requires that 
     researchers submit proof that the International Research 
     Board (IRB), a research oversight commission, approves their 
     work, Opening Lines does not burden its customers with such 
     technicalities. In fact, says the Opening Lines brochure, 
     researchers need not tell the company why they need baby 
     parts at all--simply state their wishes and let Opening Lines 
     provide ``the freshest tissue prepared to your specifications 
     and delivered in the quantities you need it.''
       Opening Lines' brochure cloaks the profit motive in a veil 
     of altruism. The cover tells abortionists that since fetal-
     tissue donation benefits medical science, ``You can turn your 
     patients' decision into something wonderful.'' But in case 
     philanthropy isn't a sufficient motivator, Dr. Jones also 
     makes his program financially appealing to abortionists. Like 
     AGF, he offers to lease space from clinics so his staff can 
     dissect children's bodies on-site, but also goes a step 
     further: He offers to train abortion clinic staff to harvest 
     tissue themselves. He even sweetens the deal for abortionists 
     with a financial incentive: ``Based on your volume, we will 
     reimburse part or all of your employee's salary, thereby 
     reducing your overhead.''
       Again the money trail: more dead babies harvested, less 
     overhead. Less overhead, more profit.
       But Dr. Jones' own profits may be taking a beating at 
     present. When Life Dynamics released the results of its 
     investigation to West Frankfort's newspaper The Daily 
     American, managing editor Shannon Woodworth ran a front-page 
     story under a 100-point headline: ``Pro-Lifers: Baby body 
     parts sold out of West Frankfort.'' The little town of 9,000 
     was scandalized. City officials threatened legal action 
     against Dr. Jones and his chief of staff Gayla Rose, a lab 
     technician and longtime West Frankfort resident. The story 
     splashed down in local TV news coverage, and Illinois right-
     to-life activists vowed to picket Opening Lines. Within a 
     week, Gayla Rose had shut down the company's West St. Louis 
     Street location, disconnected the phone, and disappeared.
       Area reporters now believe Dr. Jones may be operating 
     somewhere in Missouri. WORLD attempted to track him down, but 
     without success.
       The demands of researchers for fetal tissue will continue 
     to drive suppliers to supply it. And all parties will 
     continue to wrap their grim enterprise in the guise of the 
     greater good. But some bioethicists believe that even the 
     greater good has a spending cap.
       Christopher Hook, a fellow with the Center for Bioethics 
     and Human Dignity in Bannockburn, Ill., calls the 
     exploitation of pre-born children ``too high a price 
     regardless of the supposed benefit. We can never feel 
     comfortable with identifying a group of our brothers and 
     sisters who can be exploited for the good of the whole,'' Dr. 
     Hook says. ``Once we have crossed that line, we have betrayed 
     our covenant with one another as a society, and certainly the 
     covenant of medicine.''

     

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