Ignorance is often a preference. It allows us to benefit from things our conscience might deny us. ‘Informed consent’ can be something we need to force upon ourselves.
Science, we prefer to think, has removed us from the dark inhumanity of human sacrifice and the historic callousness that would kill and dismember a child as insurance against starvation. The Aztecs and Maya dismembered living prisoners to appease gods and ensure crop fertility, which they believed essential to survival. The Egyptians and Norse killed servants of their deceased wealthy to improve the quality of their after-life. Our futures now are secured on the laboratory bench rather than the stone altar. We have Science, and consider ourselves far better off because of it.
A few days ago, someone shared this short video, ‘It’s OK’, about four minutes long and worth watching. It is made by a group opposing abortion called Choice42. The abortion issue is complicated and evokes emotions and is discussed later. What matters here is that the video is well researched, objective and explains how scientists are paid to cut and disembowel live humans on laboratory benches in the hope of improving the futures of those who pay them and the rest of us. As a society, we have developed well-organised, methodical ways to do this, and pride ourselves in their cleverness. The video is very moving – it is meant to be because pulling little humans apart without anaesthetic for the benefit of others is something that, when removed from its veil of scientific progress, can be hard to think about.
The use of aborted human foetuses and embryos brought us many of the vaccines we use today, including some promoted by the Roman Catholic Church and those used by many who oppose abortion itself. The cell cultures derived from the unborn babies represented in the video, and from similar cases, are used widely by people working in the biological sciences. They can be purchased online. Undoubtedly, many lives of people who lived after have been saved by the use of some of these cell lines, and people are therefore born today who would not be if the cells had not been harvested.
The researchers who regularly work with these cells come from a whole swathe of different cultures, religious beliefs and political perspectives. Mostly, they probably never seriously consider whom the cells in the petri dish descended from. If they do, they may dismiss the harvesting as too long ago to be relevant (though the practice continues) or somehow necessary (as the Aztecs did, needing to keep the world itself habitable). The video simply reminds us of certain truths, and of how willing we are, or how far we will go, to ignore them.
What is a human foetus?
Abortion is an emotive subject, but unfortunately also politicised, and this makes any discussion like this difficult. So, to be clear, this article is not about abortion, on which my views are nuanced. As a doctor, I have taken part in abortions, as prior family members took part in bombing people and machine-gunning them. I have used some of the products mentioned in the video here and have no high ground to stand on. I have also worked in a country where several thousand women die of septic abortions every year, because they cannot access practices safe for them. Taking a life is a terrible thing, and sometimes circumstances can lead to choices between terrible things. Nearly all of us find ways around “Thou shall not kill”. But we need to understand what is happening.
The other thing to be clear on here is whether a developing foetus is a human (i.e., a person). The World Health Organisation (WHO) considers them “pregnancy tissue” until delivery from the womb in its hopelessly incoherent Abortion Care Guidelines, and ”lives lost” if they happened to be born prematurely before being deliberately aborted. Such a position, that personhood is purely geographical (in or out the womb) is convenient but obviously bankrupt, telling us more about WHO than the status of a foetus. The unborn foetus can hear, respond, feel pain, move, and is fully genetically human.
Having spent months nursing a baby born at 28 weeks, I had no doubt of that child’s humanity. I have cradled premature babies born far earlier before they died. They move, struggle to breathe sometimes for hours, and I am unable to see how they were not human children, helpless though they were. Outside of a eugenicist or fascist mindset, I also struggle to see how there can be a hierarchy of human worth. We are equal or we are not, and that is not dependent on an arbitrary time of existence or the arbitrariness of position within or without the womb. This does not mean humans cannot be killed (sadly, we have wars still and may sometimes also face other difficult choices), but those we kill are our equals.
Most of us also consider humans different in worth and essence from other animals. However, irrespective of one’s view on this, we do have strict rules on the use of animals in research. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) for ethics are usually reluctant to allow the infliction of pain on animals. There was a loud outcry when the National Institutes of Health were shown to have been torturing beagles in the name of science. Hollywood movies using animals have a standard line in the credits reassuring us that “no animal was harmed”. We don’t, for whatever reason, afford the same care to developing, unborn members of our own species, and we don’t at present label our medicines to indicate their derivation from such practices. That is a strange thing, and seems somewhat cowardly.
Inflicting pain on living beings
So, the point of the video, and this article, is not the rightness or wrongness of abortion. It is that we sacrifice others in horrific ways for our own good, or accept others (the high priests of our Science) doing it for us. We accept that it is worth cutting open a developing human without anaesthetic, disembowelling him or her and using bits we cut out for experiments that may or may not prove useful to someone. The only really relevant factor is that someone was willing to pay for it to be done. So, we accept it.
This practice (which you would be jailed in the United States for doing to a cat) is considered so acceptable when done to our own that many jurisdictions actually mandate that people have vaccines developed from such practices injected into them. There is strong political pressure at present to block religious exemptions in the United States, preventing people from opting out of partaking in the results of such practices. With some religious leaders insisting that the use of products derived from foetal mutilation is an act of love, refusal based on revulsion at the slicing and tearing of live humans becomes very much a personal matter that can elicit considerable retribution from society.
The choices we make
It is not necessary to do these experiments. This is true on two levels. Firstly, the human race was not dying out before we started doing this. Most health gains come from what we eat, how we live and our environment (e.g. good sanitation). What we derive from foetal stem cells and organs is a small fractional gain on top of this. For some people it may be life or death, but for nearly all it is not. There is no such thing as “essential medical research”, just desirable research, and research that someone is paying to have done (which may or may not coincide). Secondly, it is possible to get stem cells from adults, from bone marrow and other organs. It is harder, and they are less adaptable, so such cells may be less effective in developing the products we desire. But this is certainly a risk we can reasonably choose to take.
We can do well, as a society, without tearing aborted, still-living babies apart. We choose to do this for small incremental gain. We are horrified at what the Aztecs did, and think we are better, but objectively we are essentially the same. We sacrifice growing humans, with pain and lack of concern, in the hope of a common good for the rest of us. We make a choice, based on how we value others and value ourselves.
Facing what we do, or have become party to, should not always be a comfortable thing. The past is in the past, but foetal harvesting is still happening. For those who believe a person exists beyond their organic form, the past also continues to have relevance today. We can block from our minds what we do to others for our benefit, but if humanity is worth anything, then we should recognise the act of betrayal that involves.
At the very least, based on logic, rationality and decency, we should be transparent. This should ensure truly informed consent, labelling medicines, for instance, as having been derived or not through procedures or experiments on unconsented humans. Then, clearly, we should respect those who say “no” and wish no part in the outcomes of what they may consider repugnant or immoral practices. Forcing others to follow our own choice in this matter through mandates would be unjustifiable under any enlightened system of human values.
Dr David Bell is a clinical and public health physician with a PhD in population health and background in internal medicine, modelling and epidemiology of infectious disease. Previously, he was Programme Head for Malaria and Acute Febrile Disease at FIND in Geneva and coordinating malaria diagnostics strategy with the World Health Organisation. He is a Senior Scholar at the Brownstone Institute.
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What a shocking article to innocent old me at any rate.
I am absolutely certain that 99% of people would object in the most strenuous possible terms ro this kind of research.
Surely it must be outlawed immediately. I speak as a non banner when it comes to moat things but, oddly not the dismemberment of living babies.
Full term abortion is also a foulness on many levels
Truly we are descending into a Vale of despond.
Since 1967 our society has worked hard to make sure that 99% of people have no clear idea of what is being done and to whom. After all (as seems to be the usual argument now), knowing the facts would only give ammunition to the anti-abortionists.
Socialists are a pretty disgusting lot, it seems they exist only to keep the working classes down.
Here’s George Bernard Shaw saying how they would be doing the working classes a favour by killing them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymi3umIo-sM
I would guess the working classes would be more affected by this abominable legislation, the only difference between Shaw’s ideas and today’s is that the jumped up elitist Shaw just wanted to get rid of the disgusting working class when they were of no further use. Today it’s probably just for organ harvesting for the world’s elite.
A totally disgusting bunch.
But not just foetuses will be aborted under the horrific new amendment just forced through the UK Parliament, now the most extreme abortion law in the world.
Full-term healthy newborn babies can also be legally murdered by the mother at home, if she just lies about her gestation age. This photo better illustrates the type of newborn that the mother will be able to… what? Discard? Put in the bin alive? Put outside in the snow, perhaps? The new amendment doesn’t give any advice on what to do with the newborn the mother has carried for nine months and just aborted. This infanticide will blend in seamlessly with Canadian euthanasia laws allowing ever younger children to “decide” to be killed by the state. For profit. Organ trafficking and medical research.
You are correct it is utterly despicable.
Yes, and I hope one day people will awaken to the fact that, when they declare that their dead child or teenager would be glad to know the parents donated their organs to save so many others… the child, or the teenager, or the healthy young son or daughter were ALIVE when their organs were removed, because the heart must still be beating and the blood circulating for the organs to be “viable” for transplant. The doctors tell the relatives the patient is “brain dead” to make it sound like real death.
And the doctors harvest everything from the helpless living donor: eyes, skin including face, hair, muscle tissue, reproductive organs (why?), everything. Like stripping a carcass in a slaughterhouse. It’s indescribable horror. The stuff of demonic nightmares.
People say it doesn’t matter, because the person is dead.
But they aren’t dead. If they were, their organs wouldn’t be harvested.
Who knows where their consciousness is at that time, or what their soul experiences?
God never told us to cut pieces out of one human to stick into another.
Murder is now a right.
The baby has no rights.
You have to register a gun – but not if you kill a baby. I know women who have had 3+ abortions. There are physiological effects one notices in a woman after an abortion. Why no abortion registers?
I also notice that the abortion-totalitarians were not aborted. I find that ironic.
Abortion is a contraceptive.
Soon you will be able to murder 2 year olds because they are messy and don’t understand the word ‘future’.
Here’s a 34 week old baby, alive and seemingly thriving. It would be illegal for medical staff to be involved in ‘aborting’ this baby but the woman can stay home and using god only knows what methods, choose to do something which would result in its death ( and possibly even her own if she’s alone ) yet she’d be safe as houses from prosecution. How about being sectioned in a psychiatric unit, though, because no rational person would ever choose to do this. She’d have to be out of her mind! She’s had 6 months to take action and stay within the law. Why on earth do something so barbaric at such an advanced stage?
And I’m sorry but I don’t buy all this “but birth defects” excuse because I’m sure most are detected within the legal time frame and many can be repaired after birth.
I’m all for bodily autonomy but there comes a point where medical staff should prioritise the rights of the baby over some psychopathic basket case, override her so-called ‘reproductive rights’ and they should ensure the baby is delivered alive.
I’d like to see Labour tank in the polls off the back of this legislation being approved. Morally repugnant, sick and twisted people.
https://x.com/annamlulis/status/1935144822970712493
Rather a lot of Fabian Society members voted in favour. Just a few examples;
”Fabian MPs V voting “yes” on full term abortion:
Senior Cabinet & Ministers
Rachel Reeves MP (Chancellor of the Exchequer):
“Member, Fabian Society”
Catherine West MP (Housing Minister):
“Member, Fabian Society”
Lucy Powell MP (Leader of the House):
“Member, Fabian Society”
Douglas Alexander MP (Business & Trade minister):
“Member, Fabian Society”
Wes Streeting MP (Health & Social Care Sec, formerly Executive member):
Formerly Executive Committee of the Fabian Society (ended July 2024)
Now “Member, Fabian Society”
https://x.com/KingBobIIV/status/1935207300341329980
”The Fabian Society were Eugenicists for 50 years, until Hitler showed the world what Eugenics really is. Then the Fabians (the elite who run the Labour Party), pretended they were not Eugenicists.
Now that they have a tyrannical majority (based on the votes of 1 in 6 adults) they return to Eugenics.”
https://x.com/pmclauth/status/1935061491914281433
No. Just no. Not in my name.
Not now, not in the past and not in the future.
This is satanic.
I wrote to my Member of Parliament days before the vote, appealing to her to vote against this, but she just replied yesterday that she intended to vote for it, citing various excuses. Liberal Democrat. Nauseating.
One of the reasons the madleft is mad is that it’s profoundly hostile to humanity. In fact the madleft has been driven mad by humanity as it is. We can see it every day in things like the madleft’s anti-whitism, and preference for child rapists from a particular saintly group. Now the madleft has endorsed the murder of children who are perfectly capable of surviving outside the womb. It’s because the madleft hates humanity.
As even the video points out the foetus’ used to produce cell lines would of been aborted anyway, it’s not as if women were being paid to become pregnant then have an abortion just so foetal tissue could be harvested.
There’s evidence that the foetus’ were alive or capable of feeling pain when the tissue was collected. All that was said is that the tissue needed to be collected quickly before the cells started to die. The reason they would start to die is that they were no longer getting oxygen via the placenta, not because the foetus was breathing outside the womb.
For people like myself who are strongly pro choice the reason that abortion is OK is that before a certain point in a pregnancy the foetus doesn’t have a developed brain or nervous system, therefore cant feel pain/suffer or even be aware of what’s happening to it and therefore is yet to become a human being. (This is why myself, and presumably the vast majority of people who are pro choice, think there should be limit on the stage of pregnancy before which abortion is legal). The abortions referred to in the video may well of been fairly early on in the pregnancy meaning it wasn’t organs that were collected but a relatively small number of cells that would of developed into organs if the pregnancy had of continued to full term. Similarly there’s no evidence tissues were collected from “babies”, just foetus’.
Imo if abortion is OK because the foetus isn’t fully human or sentient and it doesn’t matter to the foetus what happens to it then it doesn’t matter what happens to the foetus after the abortion. What normally happens to aborted foetus’? They aren’t given a dignified burial the way deceased people are, I assume they’re just treated the same as clinical waste. If it’s OK to treat a foetus this way then why not preserve some of the cells because they might help living sentient humans some time in the future?
You do well to look at the nuances and appreciate that this is far from being the cut and dried issue that so many treat it as. A termination using the pill method at 8 weeks gestation is a very different thing to having a surgical ( or D.I.Y, as in the latest abhorrent amendment ) termination at 24+ weeks. And then there’s all the different circumstances of the females involved to be considered. I feel the same regarding assisted dying. A very complex issue involving many different individual circumstances that is undeniably open to abuse.
Unfortunately the internet is full of such stories as this recent horrific example. I cannot for the life of me understand why her parents didn’t ensure she had an abortion. Instead they chose to further her suffering and trauma by allowing her to proceed with the pregnancy and give birth, at age 11! I wonder what the staunch anti-abortionists would do if this were their daughter. After all, it’s easy to be sanctimonious when you’re not emotionally involved;
”A paedophile who made an 11-year-old girl pregnant when he raped her has been jailed for 12 years.
The rapist, who a judge ruled cannot be identified, forced himself on the girl in the toilets at a holiday caravan park in Northumberland in 2024, Durham Crown Court heard.
The victim, who went on to give birth to a girl, said the man had ruined her past, present and future.
Judge Richard Clews said the man’s actions were “appalling” and he “stole” the girl’s childhood and innocence.
In a statement read to the court, the girl said she felt “sad, angry and hurt” and had no idea what to do about the baby in her “belly”.
She said she would not wish what had happened to her on her worst enemy, adding: “I feel my life is ruined before I even got to live much of it.”
The court heard the girl and her baby were now in care and she missed her family.
“Now I don’t see the point in life,” she said. “He has ruined it all from past, present to future.
“I have never been so sad in my life.
“All the happiness has washed away.”
The girl said giving birth was “horrible” and she feared for her daughter’s future.
“I love [my daughter] so much but I wish she was here in a different way and time,” the girl said. “Her childhood is going to be ruined too.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr57vn2xr7o
It has been suggested that if slaughterhouses had glass walls then no one would eat meat. I have thought that if late-term abortion theatres had glass walls, no one would contemplate agreeing to one.
Re the recent right to murder a child bill which went through this week. I wonder if put to a referendum how many of the Uk citizens would vote that it was ok to abort a baby the day before 40 weeks is up?
I suspect that the vast majority of the country would vote against it. In Parliament the majority of M.P’s voted for it, does that not speak loudly as to how very far removed they are from the rest of us, and how very immoral and unethical they are compared with the majority of us? So how are we surprised that the rape torture gangs were allowed to do what they did to little girls? and that our “betters” thought it was more important to protect votes and their multi culturism virtues than protecting children. The passing of the bill this week is very much a demonstration of politicians loathing and contempt for those humans not inside their world of self importance,
If this doesn’t provide further confirmation and support the theory that I’ve had for a long time, that politics is full of psychopaths, I don’t know what does. And in this scenario there seems to be a disproportionate amount within the Labour party. Having said that, if we look at other contexts, such as during the Scamdemic, when the Tories were in charge, we see that there’s also plenty of them in the Conservatives, so perhaps psychopathy exists on a spectrum or there’s just different types. ‘Bill the troll’ on here disagreed most vehemently with me on this previously, so ”prove me wrong” is what I say, because all I see is more and more evidence supporting my observation, and it just keeps coming.
It’s odd that Black Lives Matter have had nothing to say on the subject. I mean, I assume they’re anti-abortion. The clue’s in the name.
Abortion is not a complex issue. Its very clear. Thou shall not kill.
What difference is there killing a child 5 seconds before it is delivered and after it is delivered? Answer: Abortion or Murder/Infanticide. One is a crime, the other is not.
If this is true, it is infanticide on a grand scale. I am truly shocked and disgusted.
How can we find out which products or medicines have been tested in this way.
Thou shalt not kill. Exodus 20:13
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Genesis 9:6
And yet, in the New Testament,
Matthew 10:34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
John 18:10
Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
Matthew 26:51
And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.
Luke 22: 35-38
35
And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.
36
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
37
For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.
38
And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.