PITTSBURGH (LifeSiteNews) — A major university’s prestigious medical research programs — accused of improperly conducting gruesome experiments on baby body parts obtained through abortions — have been found by a legal team hired by the university to be “in compliance with federal and state laws.”
Despite claiming that its research involving fetal tissue and body parts has always been above board, the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) hired a Washington, D.C. law firm, Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, P.C. (HPM), in order to push back on reporting by pro-life activists, media, and organizations such as The Center for Medical Progress and Judicial Watch, which have cast a bright spotlight on Pitt’s Mengelian research, reportedly sometimes involving the harvesting of organs of aborted babies born alive.
The horrifying research that has been deemed to be ‘legal’
In December 2020, LifeSite reported that the University of Pittsburgh had been conducting medical research by grafting scalps from aborted babies onto rodents.
After publishing an article in the National Catholic Register about the many ways that aborted children are being used for scientific research at major universities and hospitals in the United States, author Stacy A. Trasancos tweeted a summary of her horrifying findings.
She linked the shocking research to COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci:
Aborted baby scalps grafted onto mice. Their organs transplanted. Humanized mice developed at the University of Pittsburgh, all to study the immune system. Supported by Dr. Fauci’s NIAID. Paid for by us.
Trasancos is executive director of Bishop Joseph Strickland’s St. Philip Institute of Catechesis and Evangelization in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas.
Bishop Strickland retweeted her report, declaring:
These are crimes against humanity that should be prosecuted. Silence in the face of these atrocities simply adds to the evil. Wake up America! Demand that this stops NOW!
These are crimes against humanity that should be prosecuted. Silence in the face of these atrocities simply adds to the evil. Wake up America! Demand that this stops NOW! https://t.co/sKkDNOfLBJ
— Bishop J. Strickland (@Bishopoftyler) December 17, 2020
A few months later during the spring of 2021, a six-minute video produced by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) uncovered more horrifying research at Pitt.
“The University of Pittsburgh is a hub for some of the most barbaric experiments carried out on late-term aborted human infants — experiments funded by the United States government,” explains the narrator. “At the same time, the University sponsors the local Planned Parenthood abortion business in what looks like an illegal quid-pro-quo for fetal body parts.”
At one point, the video shows a photo from a protocol developed by a University of Pittsburgh scientist “for harvesting the freshest, most pristine livers from five-month-old aborted babies in order to isolate massive numbers of stem cells for experimental transplantation into adults.”
“You can see the premature baby, aborted alive via ‘labor induction,’” continues the description. “Under surgical drapes, with the umbilical cord off to one side as the baby is cut open to harvest the liver.”
Liver being harvested from a premature baby, aborted alive via ‘labor induction,’ still attached to his / her umbilical cord.
The Pitt scientist who developed this experiment reportedly received nearly $3 million from NIH.
The video also noted that Pitt has benefited from a multiyear, $1.4 million grant from NIH’s GUDMAP project, establishing the university as a major distribution hub for aborted fetal kidneys and other fetal body parts for NIH-funded projects across the country.
The University of Pittsburgh’s long history of barbaric fetal experimentation
The CMP video recounts the University of Pittsburgh’s long history of fetal experimentation, “sometimes on babies delivered alive during later abortions.”
The video includes archival footage from unethical experiments filmed in the 1950s by the U of Pitt’s Dr. Davenport Hooker, who tested the reflexes of born-alive babies until they died.
“Two years ago, sources told CMP that Pittsburgh was one of the major hubs of the FBI’s investigation of Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the human trafficking of aborted fetuses. This isn’t surprising, because CMP undercover investigators were told previously by Planned Parenthood Western Pennsylvania (PPWP) abortion doctors who were on staff at Pitt that they supplied the University’s tissue bank,” explains the video.
The video goes on to note how many of the most notorious abortion doctors and Planned Parenthood leaders were either trained at the University of Pittsburgh or are currently connected to the school.
Morally reprehensible, but within government guidelines
The 27-page HPM report allowed that “Although the use of human fetal tissue in research may not be universally accepted, federal and state laws, as well as NIH grants policy, permit these activities as long as certain requirements are met.”
The investigators reported five major “observations” meant to assuage concerns about how Pitt conducts its research using aborted babies:
-
- First, because the University researchers are blinded to a patient’s abortion decision and the procedure itself, there is no pathway for the researcher to influence a woman to terminate her pregnancy or to donate fetal tissue for research.
- Second, there is no inherent conflict of interest in the … process for reviewing study protocols involving human fetal tissue.
- Third, our assessment did not find any illegal arrangement or quid pro quo between Pitt and Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania.
- Fourth, Pitt does not use its access to fetal tissue from abortions conducted at UPMC as a mechanism to obtain NIH grant money.
- Fifth, the process for obtaining informed consent from donors of human fetal tissue is proper and is intentionally silent as to the ultimate research use for the donation.The HMP report provides official cover for the University of Pittsburgh to carry on with its grisly research.