From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Right to Kill (was Re: Cough Man's hypocrisy)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 30 Sep 92 23:38:10 GMT

In <+xgzx3h@rpi.edu> cookc@aix.rpi.edu (rocker) writes:

>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>>In <1992Sep20.012026.15757@advtech.uswest.com> steven@jaynes ( Steve Novak) writes:

>>>Wrong.  The fetus is already dead.

>>Not always.  In the drive for fresh, "live" brain tissue, a new method
>>of abortion has evolved.  Here is Bernard Nathanson's description:

>>"Pregnant women at 13-18 weeks are placed on an operating table, 
>>the cervix is dilated, the bag of waters broken, the fetal head is
>>guided into position just above the open cervix, the fetal skull is
>>then drilled open and a suction device is placed into the brain.
>>The brain substance is then suctioned out and placed immediately on
>>ice to preserve its viability."
>>	[ALL About Issues, March/April 1992]

>Let's just check Nathanson's credibility on the subject of fetal
>tissue research a weeee bit further, shall we?

Before getting into that, I'd like to point out that there are
other references to this grisly practice.  A recent issue of
_The Catholic World Report_ had an in-depth article in which this
same procedure is described, along with the information that it was
brought up on the US Senate floor in debate on the bill that would have
mandated FEDERAL FINANCIAL SUPPORT for fetal tissue transplants--it being
perfectly legal, despite an incredible amount of media disinformation
to the contrary, to do *privately funded* research on fetal
experimentation, including tissue transplants and research on LIVE
fetuses.

Exception: a few states ban experimentation on live fetuses, but
 even those laws have never been
enforced to the knowledge of Suzanne Rini, author of _Beyond Abortion:
A Chronicle of Fetal Experimentation_.  This is one of the FEW books
that I still have not had the stomach to read all the way through, though
I am progressing in bits and pieces.  _The Gulag Archipelago_ was much
easier to push my way through.

>	...[some people] are pushing hardest for the transplant of
>	fetal brain tissue from aborted babies into the brains of
>	adults suffering from Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's
>	disease.  Do they realize that in proposing such a procedure
>	they are advocating putting the body of one individual into
>	another human being to creat a somatic multiple person (this
>	concept is common to all tissue and organ transplant), but
>	also in placing brain tissue into someone else's brain they
>	are creating a second personality as well?  Think of it:
>	two human beings of separate tissues and separate personal-
>	ities within the shell of one being.

As the pro-choicers say, "*Sigh* Reading Comprehension Time"

Nathanson does not claim this happens in ALL cases.  Analogy: "Does
rocker realize that being against all legal restrictions on abortion
means advocating the killing of unborn babies even after the mothers
have gone into labor?"  

>	-Bernard Nathanson, _ALL About Issues_, August-September 1991

>Does Nathanson have any evidence to back up this bizarre claim?
>If so, exactly HOW did he obtain this evidence?  Has he been doing
>experimentation in this area?

No, just using a little common sense.  The brain is, according to
commonly held beliefs, the location of the "someone home" that 
Elizabeth Bartley and I talk about.  If you take a big enough chunk
out of one person's brain and put it in another person's, there is
a very real possibility of Nathanson's punch line coming true.
Remember, we are talking about *live* tissue, still able to multiply
and grow--WHICH IS WHY IT WAS CHOSEN IN THE FIRST PLACE.
 
Peter Ny.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion