Replies

An anti- anti-abortion editorial
In 1999 evidence came to light that abortionists were selling body parts from aborted babies for use in medical research, transplants, or whatever other uses one might have.

An editorial has been published in various newspapers around the country titled, "Extremists trafficking in fetal remains", by Lynn Morgan, who is described as a professor of anthropology. If I may summarize, she says that there is really no issue here because, first, she doubts that such sales are really taking place, and second, even if they are, such sales are already illegal, so there is nothing to debate. Thus, she concludes, this is just an effort by "anti-abortion zealots" to "exploit fetal remains for propaganda purposes".

Her point is apparently to spin a little irony: pro-lifers accuse abortionists of profitting from the sale of baby parts (in cash), but in reality it is the pro-lifers who are profitting from it (in propaganda value). But along the way, her logic is a bit faulty.

Are abortionists selling unborn baby's body parts?
Life Dynamics, the organization that has done the most to bring this affair to light, has accumulated an enormous amount of documentary evidence to substantiate their charges. I have before me a collection of over 60 papers that they have obtained that document sales of fetal body pars. Most of these are matter-of-fact descriptions of body parts wanted with descriptions of how they are to be prepared and shipped. Several helpfully give a Federal Express account number that can be billed for the shipping charges. Perhaps the most chilling is a price list from a company called "Opening Lines", that simply lists body parts and prices, like "Livers ... $150", "Ears ... $75", "Eyes ... $75", "Brain ... $999", etc, with a conventional disclaimer at the bottom, "Prices in effect through December 31, 1999". Furthermore, they even found someone who had been involved in some of these transactions and who now had a change of heart and was willing to speak out about it.

Dismissing the evidence
Against this, Ms Morgan offers the curious rebuttal that all this evidence should be ignored because "all the information cited was provided by an anti-abortion outfit called Life Dynamics", and that Life Dynamics "trains anti-abortion activists and devises new strategies to turn the public against abortion". Apparently we are supposed to conclude that because this information was publicized by an organization that opposes abortion, that therefore the evidence can simply be dismissed. But seriously now: Would we really expect a pro-abortion organization to publicize information that would embarass themselves? Who else would publish information damaging to the abortion industry except someone who opposed abortion? Even if someone who was truly undecided on the issue came out with such information, I can't help but wonder if Ms Morgan would claim that the very fact that they had publicized it proved that they were anti-abortion and therefore biased. Will Ms Morgan insist that the same standard be applied in evaluating information about other controversial issues? If a civil rights group publicizes information about incidents of discrimination, should their evidence be ignored because they are a civil rights group and therefore "biased"? Should we refuse to believe any evidence about racist acts unless it is vouched for by the Ku Klux Klan? Really now.

Sure, I readily concede that the fact that someone has a strong opinion about an issue should lead us to demand evidence to back up their claims, and not just take their word for it. If, say, the National Banana Growers Association were to claim that eating bananas cures cancer, I would surely take one look at the claim, another look at the name, and ask to see some evidence before I simply accepted this. But while it would be naive to simply believe such a claim without seeing any evidence, it would be equally foolish to reject such a claim without looking at the evidence just because the people giving it are not neutral observers. Life Dynamics was apparently well aware of this, because they went to considerable efforts to accumulate a pile of documentary evidence and eye-witness testimony. (Before I start getting angry responses from banana growers that I am maligning their industry, let me hasten to clarify that I just invented this as a hypothetical example.)

By the way, the bio of Ms Morgan mentions that she edited a book about abortion. Was this book pro-abortion? If so, does this mean that anything she writes about abortion should be likewise ignored, because she too is "biased"?

Other rebuttals
Morgan's only real response to the evidence itself is this:

First, she asks, "Why did the one technician interviewed ... tell her story to Life Dynamics but not to the mainstream media?" But surely the obvious reply is that the mainstream media were not interested in covering this story. For example, the paper in which I saw this editorial, the Dayton Daily News, knew about this issue for many months. Even if they heard about it nowhere else, I know that Dayton Right to Life showed them the documentary evidence and urged them to cover the story. They apparently declined to do so. To the best of my knowledge, the first time they mentioned it was when they printed this editorial claiming that the whole story was pretty much fabricated. I wonder if this didn't puzzle their readers: surely most of them didn't know there was a story until the paper "explained" that there wasn't. Of course the Dayton Daily News was not the only media outlet to bury the story: most of the national media said absolutely nothing about it either.

Second, she writes that Life Dynamics "named two companies allegedly engaged in illegal trafficking, but both had packed up and disconnected their phones before reporters or legislators could talk to them. The evidence is shaky at best." I must admit that I find this line of reasoning absolutely baffling. Two companies are accused of engaging in illegal activities. Before the media can interview them or the authorities can investigate, they pack up and leave town. And Ms Morgan therefore concludes that this is proof that they are innocent and the charges are baseless?? Surely if they did nothing wrong, or if it was even debatable, they would have stuck around and given statements to the press about how innocent they were, maybe even talked about bringing law suits for libel. Suppose it had been the other way around: suppose Life Dynamics and made all these accusations, and then when reporters showed up to interview them, they found the office abandoned and everyone disappeared. Would this be taken as proof that their charges were true?

Why Congress shouldn't be holding hearings
Finally, Ms Morgan says that the whole subject is irrelevant because selling body parts is already illegal. She specifically ridicules the idea of Congress holding hearings on the subject, saying that there is nothing to discuss: if anyone is really doing this, they should simply be prosecuted. Well, I'd be the last to insist that Congressional hearings do a lot to solve any problem, but it is not at all clear why the fact that something is illegal makes hearings on the subject irrelevant. Congress routinely holds hearings on the drug problem, on racketeering, on official corruption, on all sorts of things that are illegal. Presumably the goal of these hearings is not to decide whether the thing should be made illegal, but rather to investigate questions like "Are the existing laws working?" or "What can be done to make the laws more effective?".

In this case, there is plenty of evidence that body parts are being bought and sold despite the laws against it. There are many questions that it is quite legitimate for Congress to investigate: First, of course, would be, Are the charges true? If they are, is this a widespread problem, or just a couple of isolated incidents? Are law enforcement authorities equipped to handle the problem, or should something be done to improve enforcement? Etc.

One might also note that in this case there was a very specific legal question to be discussed: It is illegal to sell human body parts, but there is no law against charging for services related to the handling of body parts. For example, if you donate a kidney for transplant, it is illegal for the recipient (or anyone else) to give you money for your kidney. But there is no law against the doctor charging for his services in performing the transplant, or against a shipping company receiving money to transport the kidney from the hospital where it is removed from you to the hospital where it is transplanted into the other person, etc. Is this a loophole? Some abortionists defended themselves by claiming that they were not selling body parts, but rather selling their services in "harvesting" and preparing these body parts.

Why is it effective propaganda?
Ms Morgan tries to make pro-lifers the villians of the story with the claim that they are trying to use the sale of the body parts of unborn babies for "propaganda". Now let's think about this for a moment. How can she think this has such great propaganda value for pro-lifers, unless she implicitly concedes that, if in fact the charges are true, that this is something outrageous and offensive? And what would make it outageous and offensive, unless we are talking about killing human beings and selling their body parts for money? If this is just a "glob of tissue" as pro-abortionists have been insisting for decades, how would there be any propaganda value in revealing that it is being bought and sold? If a reporter came out with an "exposé" revealing that women were being paid to donate their hair to make wigs, would anyone be excited about this? Could it be used as propaganda by an "anti-wig" or "pro-hair" movement? It's hard to imagine. Why not? Because hair is just a part of a woman's body and she is not harmed by selling some of it. Any attempt to make a scandal out of this would leave people asking, So what?

Ms Morgan's fear that pro-lifers will use the sale of fetal body parts for propaganda must make us wonder: Does Ms Morgan herself believe that fetuses are, in fact, babies, and that cutting them up and selling them for parts is something ... disreputable? Perhaps she is afraid that people who hear about this will conclude that an unborn child is not just a "part of his mother's body". After all, if there was any question about that before, the fact that abortionists routinely talked -- among themselves -- about his "eyes", "liver", "brain", and so on clearly prove that this is not just a "glob of tissue". Globs of tissue do not have body parts that can be sold. Living creaturess do. And killing a human being so that you can sell his body parts for profit is simply wrong, regardless of how old he is.

http://www.pregnantpause.org/abort/partexpl.htm

ANATOMY OF A DEBACLE
By Lynn Vincent

Source: World Magazine
April 1, 2000 Volume 15 Number 13

In Congress, the gruesome trade of baby body parts was supposed to be on trial; so why was the whistleblower placed on the defensive, his credibility in tatters?

By the time his telephone rang on Wednesday, March 8, Dean Alberty was already tortured with anxiety. Mr. Alberty, who from 1995 to 1997 had worked as a "tissue procurement technician" for a company called Anatomic Gift Foundation, was set to testify before Congress the following day. The topic: the illegal trade in body parts of aborted babies. As he envisioned the approaching hearing, he imagined an imposing semicircle of federal legislators staring down at him from behind microphones, a packed gallery, popping flashbulbs, and whirring cameras.

Mr. Alberty's mounting tension would have morphed instantly into black fear had he known he was walking into an ambush.

Congress had called the March 9 hearing in response to evidence of an illegal trade in fetal tissue presented by the pro-life activist group Life Dynamics, as well as corroborating independent reports by several news outlets, including WORLD (Oct. 23, 1999). Mr. Alberty, 34, first made news as the informant "Kelly," who in 1997 came to Life Dynamics with horrific stories of the for-profit distribution of baby brains, limbs, eyes, and organs by fetal tissue- brokers to medical researchers. (The group disguised Mr. Alberty as a woman to protect his identity.)

From 1997 through most of 1999, Mr. Alberty worked undercover, both in the Kansas Mid-Missouri Planned Parenthood abortion clinic and for Miles Jones, a fetal-tissue profiteer, gathering information on the new trade in human remains. But finally, his life had come down to this hearing. The next day, Mr. Alberty, who lives in Lee's Summit, Mo., would step forward to, in his words, "do the right thing."

But the right thing, it turned out, went dreadfully wrong. At the hearing, which was held by the House Subcommittee on Health and Environment, three witnesses besides Mr. Alberty were scheduled to testify: Lynn Fredericks, a former Planned Parenthood vice president who had compiled records of what she believed was a financially improper relationship between suspected baby-parts brokerage Anatomic Gift Foundation (AGF) and Kansas Mid-Missouri Planned Parenthood; AGF president James Bardsley; and Opening Lines' Dr. Jones, a Missouri pathologist who had boasted of his lucrative baby body-parts business on ABC's 20/20 only the night before.

The subcommittee was to consider a narrow question: Is fetal tissue being bought and sold in violation of federal law? But that question received scant attention during seven hours of testimony-particularly since neither Mr. Bardsley nor Dr. Jones showed up. Instead, a proceeding that should have blown the baby body-parts industry wide open dissolved into an open attack on Dean Alberty. Pro-abortion Democratic subcommittee members, apparently aided by Anatomic Gift Foundation, savaged Mr. Alberty's credibility under crossfire that eventually turned into a bipartisan turkey- shoot. When the smoke cleared, the attention of the nation was drawn effectively away from the message of an illegal trade in baby parts, and directed instead to a fallen messenger.

The orchestration of Mr. Alberty's fall began long before he arrived in Washington. The person who telephoned him the Wednesday before the hearing was Chicago attorney Fay Clayton. Ms. Clayton is a hardball, feminist lawyer who in 1998 successfully prosecuted a group of pro-life demonstrators on federal racketeering charges. Late last year, Anatomic Gift Foundation retained Ms. Clayton as counsel in a civil suit that alleged that Mr. Alberty, by recovering fetal tissue for Miles Jones, had violated a non-compete agreement he had signed when AGF hired him.

Michael Schwartz, an aide to Health and Environment Subcommittee member Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), believes the timing of AGF's lawsuit-and the nature of its eventual settlement-raises questions. Why did it take AGF two years to sue Mr. Alberty? Why did the firm file its lawsuit only after Congress had passed a resolution calling for hearings on the fetal-tissue trade? Perhaps most importantly, why did AGF settle the lawsuit in exchange for a vow of silence from Dean Alberty, when the company claimed in the suit that Mr. Alberty had injured AGF financially?

Under the terms of the out-of-court settlement, Mr. Alberty not only does not have to give AGF any money; he may also keep the non-fetal tissue recovery business he recently launched. That is, as long as he keeps his mouth shut. He is prohibited by the settlement from speaking to anyone- unless under subpoena by a court or Congress-about what he saw when he worked for AGF. As a consequence, GOP subcommittee members charged with preparing for the March 9 hearing were not able to pre-screen Mr. Alberty to determine whether he'd make a sound witness.

But that apparently did not stop Fay Clayton from conducting her own brand of pre-screening. Mr. Alberty says Ms. Clayton called him the day before the hearing to rehearse portions of his deposition with him over the telephone. She may have been legally able to do that because part of AGF's settlement with Mr. Alberty stipulated that AGF attorneys had 20 hours of access to follow up with him. Ms. Clayton did not respond to WORLD's phone call. "She told me that people were going to go to jail for whatever I said at the hearing the next day," Mr. Alberty says. "Then she read me portions of my deposition, and asked me to confirm that what she was reading was what I had said."

Mr. Alberty says it was his impression that Ms. Clayton called him to "coach" his upcoming testimony, "so she could make sure I said the same thing in the hearing as I had said in my deposition. Also to scare and intimidate me. It worked. By the time my plane touched down in Baltimore, I was scared to death."

Although he didn't know it, Mr. Alberty had good reason to be scared. According to Michael Schwartz, AGF had provided documents to pro- abortion Democrats on the subcommittee to help them destroy Mr. Alberty's credibility. Further, once minority members of the committee had obtained Mr. Bardsley's materials, Mr. Schwartz says they withheld them from GOP subcommittee members until just hours before the hearing. As a result, subcommittee Democrats were able to dismantle Mr. Alberty's story in a public vivisection that Lou Sheldon and Jim Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition called "a disaster."

It was Mr. Alberty's deposition in particular that helped Democrats shred his viability as a witness. He gave the deposition to Ms. Clayton just prior to his settlement with AGF. In it, Mr. Alberty said under oath that he had "no personal knowledge" of whether AGF ever sold fetal tissue in violation of the law. Mr. Alberty also admitted that he had embellished stories of abortion clinic goings-on that he had told to Life Dynamics in a videotape made by the group in May 1998.

"Personal knowledge" is a precise legal term that means a person was not an actual eyewitness or party to a specific event. But it does not mean that Mr. Alberty, who says he dissected dead children according to AGF's client- researcher requirements and had seen AGF's baby-parts price list, could not have made a reasonable assumption that his employers were operating illegally.

In addition, Mr. Alberty's attorney David Stout, Mr. Schwartz, and others believe that though Mr. Alberty may have embellished accounts he shared with Life Dynamics, the broad core of his story is true-including the story Mr. Alberty told legislators drove him to come forward about the body-parts trade in the first place: that of infant twins, aborted alive and brought to him in a pan for dissection. At the hearing and on the Life Dynamics videotape, Mr. Alberty said the twins, who were between 26 and 30 weeks old, were "cuddling each other" and "gasping for breath."

The incident was a crucial part of what Mr. Alberty felt was a battle for his soul. Vowing to leave the abortion business and make peace with God, Mr. Alberty walked out of the lab and out of the clinic. Even while confused, frightened, and under fire from his subcommittee inquisitors, Mr. Alberty- under oath-did not recant that story.

House members bent on discrediting Mr. Alberty brushed past the issue of the twins and focused instead on his "no personal knowledge" statements, as well as discrepancies between his deposition and the Life Dynamics videotape. California Reps. Henry Waxman, Anna Eshoo, and Lois Capps peppered Mr. Alberty with accusatory questions that Mr. Schwartz says "blew his credibility to shreds within minutes."

Another trap: Ms. Eshoo raised a sheet of paper in the air and waved it like a flag. It was a photocopy of a check made out to Mr. Alberty by Life Dynamics. In all, the group paid Mr. Alberty more than $10,000, plus $11,276 in reimbursements for expenses, over the two-year period he gathered information for them. Although Mr. Alberty does not feel that his accepting money in return for investigative work bears on his credibility, that revelation effectively nailed shut the coffin on his testimony.

Since the hearing, some have questioned the competence of the GOP staff charged with preparing for the hearing. Life Dynamics president Mark Crutcher said, "We repeatedly warned them that ... if they tried to make their case on what Alberty might do or say, rather than on the documentation, the hearing could blow up in their faces."

Mr. Alberty told WORLD that both his reputation and his life now lie in tatters. A week after the hearing debacle, he was fired from his job at a Missouri adult organ donation service. He now works as a part-time landscaper.

"I really came close to wanting to end my life after the hearing," says Mr. Alberty. "I wanted to try to do the right thing, but you know, the Devil won that day."

http://www.proaxis.com/~pharmon/crtl/articles/babyparts.html