Massachusetts News
By Jarrett Conner

December 1--The sale of body parts from aborted babies is being funded and encouraged by research firms in Massachusetts, including Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The majority of the human fetal tissue used for research comes from the remains of aborted children. The sale of the tissue is illegal, but through loopholes, the abortion industry is profiting from the sale of the baby parts.

Massachusetts has not been singled out because of its vendors, but because it has a number of world-class research firms which are potential, fetal tissue consumers. 

Massachusetts News has received purchase orders and product lists from two fetal tissue companies that reveal some of the firms which have ordered baby parts and a price list for them. Researchers from four Massachusetts research facilities – Massachusetts General Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Tissue Engineering, and Harvard Medical School’s New England Regional Primate Center – are included in the compilation of orders for fetal tissue. The information came from a pro-life research group in Texas, Life Dynamics. 

Massachusetts News endeavored to find out what policies these institutions follow when ordering human fetal tissue when it is required for their research.

Mass General Will Not Talk

Mass General Hospital’s Division of Surgical Oncology is identified on an order protocol for fetal livers between 17-23 weeks old. Included in the protocol is a request that the tissue vendor "list any abnormalities which may have resulted in the decision to abort the pregnancy."

A spokesperson for the hospital explained that the doctor named in the purchase order, Dr. Barrie Bode, no longer works there and that it would be difficult to find out what his work may have entailed.

Massachusetts News located Dr. Barrie Bode, and he explained that he used human fetal tissue while working on liver cancer at MGH. He verified that he had acquired fetal tissue from the Anatomic Gift Foundation for his research, confirming the Anatomic Gift Foundation’s purchase order.

MGH was aware of his study at the time and aware that it employed human fetal tissue, as it required approval from the MGH Institutional Review Board, Bode told Massachusetts News.

Bode explained that he has no working knowledge of how fetal tissue is acquired, but he passionately defended the research that can be done with fetal tissue. Bode is not currently involved in any research that uses human fetal tissue, although he believes that the research is both legal and valuable.

MGH would not answer questions about their policies regarding fetal tissue research. When asked again about Dr. Bode’s Research, an MGH spokesperson told Massachusetts News, "No one here will want to talk to you about that" and hung up.

Another Boston- based research firm, Schepens Eye Research, had reportedly ordered hearts, livers, corneas and other organs from 20-22 weeks gestation. After seeing a fax of their own purchase order, Larry Bernard, a representative from Schepens, declared that the involved doctor doesn’t work there now and whatever was going on then isn’t anymore, but added that he would have to look into the situation.

Bernard had not provided any additional information as of this printing.

New England Regional Primate Research Center – a part of Harvard Medical School – has done research with human fetal tissue in the past, their spokesman and head of public affairs, Don Gibbons, told Massachusetts News.

When asked about current policies for the acquisition of human fetal tissue, he claimed that he could not answer that question. When asked who would be able to answer that question, he said, "I am the one to find that answer if I thought it was important for you to know."

Gibbons has not responded further.

Tissue Engineering, a Boston biotech firm, was reluctant to discuss their relationship with fetal tissue vendors. According to the protocol, a doctor affiliated with their firm ordered "bone cartilage, marrow, liver, pancreas, brain" at varied gestational ages. The specimen is requested to be "fresh, healthy, no diabetes (type I or II), cancer or metabolic disorders" and shipped "on wet ice."

Tissue Engineering CEO Eugene Bell refused to comment on this matter.

Research Not Illegal

Research on fetal tissue has been legal for some time. The ban on federally funded research that involves fetal tissue was lifted by a Clinton Executive Order in 1993, but the sale of fetal parts is not legal. 

Reports are surfacing nationwide that tissue harvesters operate within abortion clinics and can have procedures altered to acquire the tissues they need. Senator Bob Smith (R New Hampshire) brought these concerns to the floor of the Senate, displaying a price chart from Opening Lines which clearly shows the prices for parts including pancreas, $100; kidney, $125; eyes, $75; brain, $999 – with a significant discount if the brain is significantly fragmented. 

The law allows for the transfer of fetal tissue if it is donated, hence these companies rent space from abortion clinics rather than pay them for the fetus, and researchers are to be charged for the costs of the service of providing the tissue. Opening Lines demonstrates in their own material that they sell the tissue for a price and discount the tissue if it is not in good condition.

Senator Smith also pointed out the potential connection between profits from tissue harvesting and the push for partial birth abortions which produce a large amount of intact baby parts that could then be used for research.

Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts

Planned Parenthood on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston does not have a fetal tissue harvester on site. In fact, Planned Parenthood in Massachusetts destroys all of its abortion remains (called product of conception), "We send the entire product of conception to a lab in Chicago where it is analyzed for the sake of the mother’s health and then destroyed," a representative of the Massachusetts abortion clinics told Massachusetts News.

Planned Parenthood would not release the name of the Chicago facility that receives their products of conception.

The Massachusetts licensing body, the Department of Public Health, requires that the fetus be sent for pathology analysis and then be destroyed. The Department of Health issues licenses to abortion clinics, and then they are subject to review at the discretion of the department. Not all abortion clinics in Massachusetts are licensed by the state.

Insider Information Reveals Unethical Practices

Researchers must work closely with vendors to get the tissue that they need. Undercover interviews from Life Dynamics suggest that fetal tissue vendors must work together with the researchers to ship the tissue via Fed-Ex.They permit the shipment of liquids like blood and urine and some other materials for diagnostic purposes only. In one of the undercover interviews, Brenda Bardsley, president of the Anatomical Gift Foundation, explained how the researchers can get the tissue delivered by Fed-Ex by using "vague" language to avoid problems with shippers.

In another of the interviews, the president of Opening Lines admits that buying fetal tissue is illegal, and he goes on to explain the method by which companies get around the law. You can’t buy it "but that’s the way it works out . . . what you are buying is the service of us getting it to you."

‘Opening Lines’ Flees 

Since Senator Smith’s revelations in the Senate and the House resolution to investigate these practices, ‘Opening Lines’ has vacated their offices in West Frankfurt, Illinois, and their forwarding phone numbers are not available.

Researchers use fetal tissue in pursuit of noble ends. Knowledge about liver cancer or Parkinson’s disease, for instance, is increased greatly from the use of fetal tissue in research. While few question the motives of researchers who want to cure these diseases, abortion clinics, tissue wholesalers, and pharmaceuticals companies stand to make millions off the practice; and research institutions are in line for those rewards as well.

Congress passed a resolution urging members to investigate the practices of companies that deal in baby body parts. Some of these baby-parts companies have been accused of working with abortion clinics and having procedures altered for the sake of the desired tissue.