Human Trafficking... Legal

Harvesting Baby Parts -- 20/20 -- and Peter Singer

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Singer was the founding President of the International Association of Bioethics and, with Helga Kuhse, founding co-editor of the journal Bioethics.

In his book “Practical Ethics,” he writes:

If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal.

If we can put aside these emotionally moving but strictly irrelevant aspects of the killing of a baby we can see that the grounds for not killing persons do not apply to newborn infants.

Remember that Peter Singer teaches ethics to generations of medical students. An ABC 20/20 special turned up some horribly unsettling info about an industry that has come into being with the slow march towards the devaluation of human life:

ABC NEWS "20/20" INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED TRAFFICKING IN FETAL TISSUE FINDS COMPANIES THAT APPEAR TO BE PROFITING FROM SELLING HUMAN TISSUE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH

A three-month "20/20" hidden-camera investigation has uncovered an industry in which tissue and organs from aborted fetuses, donated to help medical research, are being marketed for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.

"20/20" has investigated one businessman whose company issued a price list charging what many call exorbitant prices for fetal tissue. In addition, ABC News "20/20" chief correspondent Chris Wallace has an exclusive interview with a whistle-blower who says two tissue retrieval companies he worked for went so far as to, on some occasions, encourage him to take fetal tissue obtained from women who had not consented to donate their fetuses to medical research. The report will air on "20/20 Wednesday," March 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.

Many say that fetal tissue is vital in scientific research that may provide dramatic medical breakthroughs, and federal law permits the donation of tissue from aborted fetuses for that purpose. But the law says companies that transport fetal tissue to medical research labs may only charge a reasonable fee to recover costs of collecting and shipping human tissue. "20/20's" investigation found some companies are charging high fees -- fees that critics say are not based on recovering costs; for example, the price list for one company, Opening Lines, includes listings of $325 for a spinal cord, $550 for a reproductive organ, $999 for a brain.

How are these prices determined? One "20/20" producer went undercover as a potential investor to meet Dr. Miles Jones, a Missouri pathologist whose company, Opening Lines, obtains fetal tissue from clinics and ships it to research labs. "It's market force," Dr. Jones told the producer about how he sets his prices. "It's what you can sell it for." He says he hopes to run his own abortion clinic in Mexico where he says he could get a greater supply of fetal tissue by offering cheaper abortions: "If you control the flow -- it's probably the equivalent of the invention of the assembly line."

"That's trading in body parts. There's no doubt about it," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.

Representative Thomas Bliley (R-VA), who chairs the United States House Commerce Committee, says his committee is now investigating four companies after finding evidence they may be selling tissue for a profit. He says the committee is interested in ensuring that people transporting fetal tissue only recover their legitimate costs. "It appears that it's more than that. That it comes down to trafficking in tissue parts," he tells Mr. Wallace. Rep. Bliley's committee expects to hold hearings on this issue later this week. [Note: The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health and the Environment has scheduled a hearing on Thursday, March 9, at 2 p.m., on the subject, "Fetal Tissue: Is It Being Bought and Sold in Violation of Federal Law?"]

Another piece to this puzzle was added with an article by Mona Charin, a nationally syndicated columnist when she wrote this in reference to another think tank article:

"Kelly" (a pseudonym) was a medical technician working for a firm that trafficked in baby body parts. This is not a bad joke. Nor is it the hysterical propaganda of an interest group. It was reported in the American Enterprise magazine--the intelligent, thought-provoking, and utterly trustworthy publication of the American Enterprise Institute.

The firm Kelly worked for collected fetuses from clinics that performed late-term abortions. She would dissect the aborted fetuses in order to obtain 'high-quality" parts for sale. They were interested in blood, eyes, livers, brains, and the thymuses, among other things.

"What we did was to have a contract with an abortion clinic that would allow us to go there on certain days. We would get a generated list each day to tell us what tissue researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and universities were looking for. Then we would examine the patient charts. We only wanted the most perfect specimens.' That didn't turn out to be difficult. Of the hundreds of late-term fetuses Kelly saw on a weekly basis, only about 2 percent had abnormalities. About 30 to 40 babies per week were around 30 weeks old--well past the point of viability.

Is this legal? Federal law makes it illegal to buy and sell human body parts. But there are loopholes in the law. Here's how one body parts company--Opening Lines Inc.--disguised the trade in a brochure for abortionists: "Turn your patient's decision into something wonderful."

For its buyers, Opening Lines offers "the highest quality, most affordable, freshest tissue prepared to your specifications and delivered in the quantities you need, when you need it." Eyes and ears go for $75, and brains for $999. An "intact trunk" fetches $500, a whole liver $150. To evade the law's prohibition, body-parts dealers like Opening Lines offer to lease space in the abortion clinic to "perform the harvesting," as well as to "offset the clinic's overhead." Opening Lines further boasted, "Our daily average case volume exceeds 1,500 and we serve clinics across the United States."

Kelly kept at her grisly task until something made her reconsider. One day, "a set of twins at 24 weeks gestation was brought to us in a pan. They were both alive. The doctor came back and said, 'Got you some good specimens--twins.' I looked at him and said: 'There's something wrong here. They are moving. I can't do this. This is not in my contract.' I told him I would not be part of taking their lives. So he took a bottle of sterile water and poured it in the pan until the fluid came up over their mouths and noses, letting them drown. I left the room because I could not watch this."

But she did go back and dissect them later. The twins were only the beginning. "It happened again and again. At 16 weeks, all the way up to sometimes even 30 weeks, we had live births come back to us. Then the doctor would either break the neck or take a pair of tongs and beat the fetus until it was dead."

American Enterprise asked Kelly if abortion procedures were ever altered to provide specific body parts. "Yes. Before the procedures they would want to see the list of what we wanted to procure. The (abortionist) would get us the most complete intact specimens that he could. They would be delivered to us completely intact. Sometimes the fetus appeared to be dead, but when we opened up the chest cavity, the heart was still beating."

The magazine pressed Kelly again. Was the type of abortion ever altered to provide an intact specimen, even if it meant producing a live baby? "Yes, that was so we could sell better tissue. At the end of the year, they would give the clinic back more money because we got good specimens."

Some practical souls will probably swallow hard and insist that, well, if these babies are going to be aborted anyway, isn't it better that medical research should benefit? No. This isn't like voluntary organ donation. This reduces human beings to the level of commodities. And it creates of doctors who swore an oath never to kill, the kind of people who can beat a breathing child to death with tongs.

And the final, the actual price list from one of the now many companies that participate in the trafficking of human parts:

Opening Lines
A Division of Consultants & Diagnostic Pathology,
Inc. P.O. Box 508, West Frankfort,
IL 62896
Phone: 800-490-9980
Fax: 618-937-1525
Fee for Services Schedule

> greater than < same or less than

Unprocessed Specimen (> 8 weeks) $ 70

Unprocessed Specimen (< 8 weeks) $ 50

Livers (< 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150

Livers (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $125

Spleens (< 8 weeks) $ 75

Spleens (> 8 weeks) $ 50

Pancreas (< 8 weeks) $100

Pancreas (> 8 weeks) $ 75

Thymus (< 8 weeks) $100

Thymus (> 8 weeks) $ 75

Intestines & Mesentery $ 50

Mesentery (< 8 weeks) $125

Mesentery (> 8 weeks) $100

Kidney-with/without adrenal (< 8 weeks) $125

Kidney-with/without adrenal (> 8 weeks) $100

Limbs (at least 2) $150

Brain (< 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $999

Brain (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150

Pituitary Gland (> 8 weeks) $300

Bone Marrow (< 8 weeks) $350

Bone Marrow (> 8 weeks) $250

Ears (< 8 weeks) $ 75

Ears (> 8 weeks) $ 50

Eyes (< 8 weeks) 40% discount for single eye $ 75

Eyes (> 8 weeks) 40% discount for single eye $ 50

Skin (> 12 weeks) $100

Lungs & Heart Block $150

Intact Embryonic Cadaver (< 8 weeks) $400

Intact Embryonic Cadaver (> 8 weeks) $600

Intact Calvarium $125

Intact Trunk (with/without limbs) $500

Gonads $550

Cord Blood (Snap Frozen LN₂) $125

Spinal Column $150

Spinal Cord $325

 Another article that shows this is happening elsewhere:

Harvesting Organs

Sarah Boseley, health editor

Thursday January 11, 2001

The true scale of the scandal of human organ retention by hospitals will be revealed today by the government's chief medical officer, who will tell parents and professionals that 50,000 organs are being stored in hospitals in England alone. The number far exceeds expectations.

Liam Donaldson will say that what was done in the name of the NHS over many years was an affront to families who had lost their loved ones. Addressing a public seminar, whose audience will include top pathologists and other senior doctors:

"Some of the past practices around organ retention belong to an era where decisions were made by the NHS for patients, but not with patients. This has caused a period of immense distress for families, especially in places like Bristol and Liverpool, when they found out their children's organs were taken without their knowledge. Something went seriously wrong in the way the health service dealt with the issue of organ retention."

Prof Donaldson will pledge that the government "will do whatever it takes to put things right, changing the law if necessary to ensure that relatives are given the right kind of information so they can give consent in a fully informed way if they choose to do so."

At Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, where an inquiry will report shortly, more than 3,000 children's organs have been discovered; other hospitals were not thought to have anything like that number.

The chief medical officer will offer an unmitigated apology and assurances for the future to the parents of the Alder Hey children and those whose children died and had organs removed at the Bristol royal infirmary who have been invited to today's seminar. None of the parents knew that hearts, brains and other whole organs would be removed and kept after the autopsy on their son or daughter.

Ian Kennedy, chairman of the inquiry into children's deaths following heart surgery at Bristol, published an interim report into organ retention at the hospital last May. He found that the law was complex and obscure. Different laws covered hospital autopsies - which help doctors find out about the progress of disease - and those ordered by the coroner to find out the cause of death. Prof Kennedy recommended at least a new code of practice and preferably a new law.

Prof Donaldson has issued interim guidance to hospitals, requiring them to tell parents and relatives exactly what an autopsy involves and get their explicit permission if there is any need to remove organs. Today's seminar is part of his information-gathering process on the way to producing his final report to the health secretary, Alan Milburn. That is expected, along with the Alder Hey inquiry report, before the end of the month.

Ed Bradley, chairman of the Alder Hey parents' support group, said more than 140 parents and relatives had travelled to London for the seminar and were glad of the opportunity to give evidence, "however, we do question how much benefit can be gained from a one-day conference where we have only been given five minutes to represent our views." They also felt it would be more appropriate to discuss the way forward after the Alder Hey inquiry had reported.

Alder Hey hospital is generally considered a special case, because whole organ systems were found to have been collected by a consultant pathologist, Dick Van Velzen, who is facing disciplinary hearings at the General Medical Council.

Bristol parents at the seminar will be asking for Prof Kennedy's recommendations to be implemented and questioning why there has been no action since his report was published. "It was quite clear the law was in a mess," said Steve Parker, chairman of the Bristol Heart Children's Action Group.