By Hilary White
LONDON, March 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Oxford University stem cell expert has urged the use of aborted children in organ transplants as a solution to the shortage of available organs. Sir Richard Gardner has called for a feasibility study on the possibility of obtaining organs from the bodies of aborted babies.
He said, “It is probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others.”
The Daily Mail reports that pro-life and Christian groups have called the proposal “morally abhorrent,” and said it will result in abortions being timed to suit transplant patients.
Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said the transplants would be immoral as every human being, even the unborn, deserved “protection, respect, wonder and empathy.”
Fears that this suggestion will create a trade in aborted children have their justification in the work of US pro-life groups who have in the past uncovered the relationship between the abortion industry and the trade in aborted body parts for medical research and the creation of vaccines. (See: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07113008.html)
In 2005, the trade in aborted fetuses made headlines after reports came from Ukraine that newborn babies were disappearing from maternity wards to fuel the increasing demand for body parts. One Ukrainian research institute was advertising fetal body parts, such as “Foetus spleen cells,” and “fragments of foetus spine,” for sale in medical research.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Premature Live Babies Taken from Ukraine Maternity Wards Sold For Body Parts?
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/sep/05091207.html
Use of Abortion Victim’s Body Parts for Research Has Become Major Industry
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07113008.html
Trafficking in Body Parts a Natural Extension of De-Humanizing Abortion Culture
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/aug/04080302.html