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"A Barbaric Kind of Beauty": Cosmetic Clinics Offer Injections Using Tissue and Stem Cells from Aborted Babies
August 09, 2006
A recent article in the London Daily Mail reveals how upscale clinics around the world are offering facelifts and cosmetic injections using tissues and cells from aborted fetuses. These clinics are typically located in tourist hotspots and are not members of the International Stem Cell Forum, the only recognized board to regulate stem cell research. Thus, the clinics are free to obtain aborted fetuses unethically and use them in highly questionable treatments.
The article profiles clinics in Barbados, the Dominican Republic, and Moscow that offer "anti-aging" injections of stem cells from aborted fetal tissue, ranging from £10,000 to £20,000 (about $19,000 to $38,000). Russia has an alarmingly large black market in aborted fetuses that are smuggled from the Ukraine and Georgia. Poor women are paid around $200 to carry a child up to eight to twelve weeks, which is the optimal time to harvest fetal tissue. The bodies are then sold to clinics that cater their cosmetic therapies to tourists and upper class women who travel overseas just to get the treatments.
Having a clinic in a country where there are no laws against fetal farming does not mean that part of the business cannot be based in a country that does, however. William Rader, a psychiatrist based in Malibu, California, founded the Medra clinic located in the Dominican Republic. Rader first consults with clients in Malibu, then arranges for them to fly to the La Romana beach resort to receive their treatments. The happy customer enjoys both a treatment that "detects and then attempts to repair any damage or deficit discovered" in the body and a vacation to a luxury resort. The Daily Mail article's author asked a Medra staff member where the fetal tissue comes from, and the response confirmed that aborted fetuses were obtained from Georgia, the former Soviet republic.
The Ultimate Hypocrisy: Ms. Magazine Executive Editor Refuses to Answer Whether or Not She Will Sign Her Own Magazine's Petition
August 09, 2006
Ms. Katherine Spillar, Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and Executive Vice President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, has been promoting an end to the "stigma" of abortion by encouraging women to come forward saying their abortion was a good decision. Before Roe v. Wade, the magazine started a petition for women to sign declaring they had had an abortion even though it was illegal. Ms. Magazine is now circulating a petition encouraging women to proclaim that their abortions were positive experiences. The feminist magazine hopes that this petition drive will erase the societal guilt placed on women who choose to "terminate their pregnancy".
In a radio news broadcast with Michael Medved, Ms. Spillar compared the abortion procedure to removing one's tonsils-with the stipulation that abortion was even more "safe" and less invasive than a tonsillectomy. Since Ms. Spillar and her supporters believe that abortion is a common and insignificant practice, they should feel no shame in publicizing it - just as if it were having one's tonsils taken out.
Yet what is perhaps more concerning than this flagrant disregard for human life is that, when asked on the radio show whether or not she would sign the petition stating that abortion was a positive experience, Ms. Spillar would not reply. Her refusal to answer the question she is encouraging millions of post-abortive women to answer should cause great concern for those women. If she refused to answer because she has had an abortion, then why push other women to admit they have had one? If Ms. Spillar has not had an abortion, then she is obviously embarrassed for not having one. This distortion of logic is an alarming reflection of the anti-life culture that our society has created.
Ms. Magazine relaunches a campaign for "honesty and freedom" in which women share their "positive" abortion experiences in order to fight abortion bans and support abortion provider
August 02, 2006
In their 1972 debut issue, prior to Roe v. Wade, Ms. Magazine started a petition in which 53 women stated that their abortions were good decisions. Now, the magazine asserts the time has come again for "women of conscience" to "speak truth to power" by sending its petition to politicians at state and national levels.Ê Apparently, the "truth" is that abortion is good for women.
The petition states that post-abortive women have spoken out many times since Roe v. Wade, and that "millions of women and men have marched in countless rallies and demonstrations." Ostensibly, they are not referring to the thousands of people who have come to the March for Life every year for the past 33 years. More egregious, however, is the fact that they are ignoring the millions of women who regret their abortions for the terrible emotional, psychological, and physical effects that last for a lifetime.
Women who suffer from abortion state that no one warned them of the pain that their abortions would cause them. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign and Operation Outcry are organizations that seek to expose the secrecy and heal the silence surrounding that pain. Joyce Zounis, director of women's outreach for Operation Outcry, says that, "not once in eleven years was I told of the emotional complications an abortion can bring." Zounis had the first of seven abortions when she was 15 years old.
Respond to the Ms. Magazine campaign by going to http://www.msmagazine.com/contact.asp.
In its July 29th editorial, the Boston Globe claimed, in essence, that it is better for children to be aborted than to be born to teenage mothers who don’t want them
July 31, 2006
"It is hard to see how forcing a frightened 15-year-old to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term will improve the life of the teen or her child,” the Globe opined. But on the other hand, it seems hard to see how letting a child live, rather than aborting it, can fail to improve the life of the child. The Globe continued, "Unsurprisingly, teen mothers are far more likely to be unmarried, to drop out of school, and to live in poverty than women who delay pregnancy. Their babies suffer higher infant mortality rates." As Mark Finkelstein, writing for Lifenews.com points out, “The Globe expresses a tender concern about high infant mortality rates among children born to teenage mothers. The Globe's preferred solution? The 100% mortality rate of abortion.”
The editorial ended with a dramatic flourish, claiming that, “It is a perilous time to be young, female and pregnant in the United States.” It seems more appropriate to say that it is a perilous time to be an unborn child in the United States
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