Analysis

UCSF’s callous abortion harvesting operations exposed in records obtained by pro-life group

San Francisco

Pro-Life San Francisco has long been protesting UCSF and related institutions which operate under the university’s banner for their gruesome experiments involving fetal tissue and body parts, including recent experiments involving humanized mice, as well as the egregiously inhumane second-trimester abortions which supply those fetal parts. UCSF receives millions of taxpayer dollars to conduct these experiments, which hardly resemble any legitimately purpose-driven science.

Abortion survivors and viability

Fetal body parts are being harvested under the UCSF umbrella from babies aborted at the two UCSF-affiliated Women’s Options Center locations. Studies show that the labor induction abortion techniques used in these facilities to procure “fresh” parts can result in live births as often as 50% of the time. UCSF professor and Director of one Women’s Options Center location, Eleanor Drey, has referenced the reality of abortion survivors in both D&E and labor induction abortion procedures. 

Pro-Life San Francisco recently made a request under the California Public Records Act that included requests for: 

1. “Any and all UCSF protocols and procedures for determining the viability of a neonate after labor induction abortion procedures including … in instances where the neonate is born alive after the procedure is performed,”

2. “UCSF’s protocols and procedures regarding the delivery of medical care to neonates born at the Women’s Options Center[s],” and

3. “Human fetal tissue procurement logs.” 

These were in addition to several other requests, which have yet to be fulfilled.

The documents obtained pursuant to this request reveal disturbing details about the true extent of the atrocities taking place at this state-sponsored institution and the strikingly callous and casual attitude with which they are being carried out — all at the expense of average Americans. 

READ: Explosive video reveals how UCSF dismembers preborn babies to obtain bodies for research

In correspondence with attorneys for Pro-Life San Francisco, attorneys for UCSF admitted that, with regard to the first two requests, there were no documents to turn over, because UCSF/the Women’s Options Centers have no protocol for determining the viability of abortion survivors, or for providing care to them. This is a tacit admission of the possibility that abortion survivors are simply left to die, without so much as the basic humane provision of palliative care. The situation at UCSF’s Women’s Options Centers is essentially a free-for-all, where each abortion survivor’s life hinges upon the whim of the abortionist paid to kill him or her.

The lack of a protocol for determining viability comes as no surprise, for several reasons. Viability has been shown to be an essentially meaningless concept, as science and technology are always advancing in ways that allow children to survive outside the womb at increasingly early ages. “Viability” is a moving target which will inevitably vary from individual to individual.

Even abortionists admit that the concept of viability is devoid of real meaning. “So, viability is a complicated medical construct,” said Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, in testimony before the US House of Representatives. “There is no particular gestational age. There are some pregnancies in which a fetus will never be viable. There are a number of different factors that we think about when we’re considering if a pregnancy is or isn’t viable.”

The tissue logs

With regard to the third request, Pro-Life San Francisco provided Live Action News with the tissue procurement logs they obtained, which are referred to as “Arrival/Departure and Collection Lists,” presumably referring to the arrival and departure of the procurers themselves, whose entry and exit times are logged, in addition to the actual parts harvested. It appears from the dates that the fetal tissue harvesting business didn’t miss a beat while other businesses were completely shuttered during strict COVID-19 lockdowns in California.

Note the last fetal “part” taken on this emailed log:

Of particular note is the frequency with which reproductive organs appear on these lists. Out of 43 logs, 42 document the harvesting of genitalia and/or gonads. It seems ironic that these “scientists,” who work for an institution that postures itself as a frontline warrior in the battle for so-called “reproductive justice,” spend their days mutilating the reproductive organs of people whose lives have been brutally ended under the banner of “reproductive choice.” 

But perhaps the most chilling aspect of these logs is the presence of mundane, everyday conversational tidbits scattered within them. Things like shift trades and laptop mishaps are casually discussed in-between the horrific lists of body parts taken from aborted children, many of whom may have been born alive and/or able to survive on their own:

Sometimes, the procurers even display a bit of jolly camaraderie:

READ: UCSF professor: Abortion survivors “should not necessarily receive” medical care

The banality of evil

It might be difficult to imagine how people could do such gruesome work with such a blasé attitude, but it is precisely their blasé attitude which allows them to do this work. In his introduction to Hannah Arendt’s seminal work, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” Amos Elon summarized Arendt’s theory: 

Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought, for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.

It is precisely the fact that these scientists never pause to consider the larger ramifications of their deeds that allows them to perform these deeds without interference from their consciences. It is the fact that they approach their jobs with a hum-drum, business-as-usual attitude — a banality — that enables them to go on committing unthinkable evil as though they were merely doing everyday tasks with a justifiable purpose. 

We cannot rely on people to magically wake up from their comas of conscience. Instead, we must make efforts to educate while simultaneously taking action to curtail the commission of these human rights violations. For more information, see Pro-Life San Francisco’s UCSF fact sheet and call to action.

Editor’s Note: For full documents and additional information, click here.

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