Dr. Ben Carson & his research on babies killed by abortion
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Update 10:43 AM
Dr. Ben Carson spoke to Neil Cavuto yesterday. From The Hill:
Women who get pregnant from rape or incest should be able to go to the emergency room for an “abortion pill,” Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Thursday.
Speaking on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” the anchor asked Carson if he believes women should be able to get abortions in cases of rape or incest.
“I would hope that they would very quickly avail themselves of the emergency room, and in the emergency room, they have the ability to administer RU-486 and other possibilities before you have a developing fetus,” Carson said, more than five minutes into the interview.”
RU-486 has been dubbed a “chemical abortion pill” by some anti-abortion groups. The National Right to Life website describes it as a pill used at five to seven weeks of pregnancy “that kills an unborn baby whose heart has already begun to beat.”
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Responding to an article pointing out that Dr. Ben Carson performed research on babies who were killed by abortion, Carson said:
“If you’re killing babies and taking the tissue, that’s a very different thing than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it,”
Dr. Carson was challenged by Dr. Jen Gunter with:
“Dr. Ben Carson has done research on fetal tissue and published his findings. His name is on the paper so that means he had a substantive role in the research and supports the methods and findings.”
Before I continue, I like Dr. Ben Carson. I believe he is a man of good moral character. I like the way he speaks, where he stands on most issues and I believe he would make a good president.
This article isn’t meant to attack Ben Carson. I am responding to the issue mentioned above, his involvement with research on human beings who were killed by abortion.
In my opinion, Dr. Carson took the wrong direction with his answer. There are questions that require answers.
– Were you forced to use humans killed by abortion for your research? (It doesn’t look like it)
– Did you voluntarily participate in this research? (It appears you did)
– Why didn’t you speak out against the use of humans killed by abortion for your research? (You still don’t seem to have a problem with it, referring to the killed humans as “specimens.”)
At the moment, the biggest question I have is, why are Christian and pro-life leaders / media outlets giving Dr. Ben Carson a pass? If this were Hillary Clinton making comments like this, they would be vilifying her from dawn till dusk.
I’m not going to mention any specific people or news entities. Well, I don’t have to, because none of them are speaking out against his position!
I can tell you with certainty, if Nellie Gray were alive today, five minutes after his statements, Nellie would have educated (schooled) Dr. Carson on this issue!
I just noticed a fresh article on CNN on Carson’s response to this controversy. He stated:
“To not use the tissue that is in a tissue bank, regardless of where it comes from, would be foolish. Why would anybody not do that?
There is absolutely no contradiction between the research I worked on in 1992 and my pro-life views. The issue of fetal tissue has everything to do with how the tissue is acquired. My primary responsibility in that research was operating on people to obtain diseased tissue for comparison to banked tissue samples. Killing babies and harvesting tissue for sale is very different than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it, which is exactly the source of the tissue used in our research.”
I, nor any of the doctors involved with this study, had anything to do with abortion or what Planned Parenthood has been doing,” he said in a post. ‘Research hospitals across the country have microscope slides of all kinds of tissue to compare and contrast. The fetal tissue that was viewed in this study by others was not collected for this study.'”
Let’s deal with your first statement. You say:
“To not use the tissue that is in a tissue bank, regardless of where it comes from, would be foolish. Why would anybody not do that?”
Really? What if it came from immoral Nazi experimentation? More on that later.
Again you refer to “specimens.” Planned Parenthood is selling human beings killed by abortion to research facilities around the country, possibly facilities like the one where you did your research, to be used as specimens. What is the difference between their specimens and your specimens? You can’t say because you probably don’t know.
Dr. Carson, what you did and what Planned Parenthood did were both immoral. We should not kill humans, or use humans immorally killed to gain knowledge from their death.
The facility provided specimens of human beings that were killed by abortion for you to use for research. You don’t know how the facility acquired the specimens. For all we know, they purchased them from Planned Parenthood!
You claim the specimens came from miscarriages, but as Dr. Jen Gunter states:
“Tissue from spontaneous abortions is often abnormal, hence the loss, so not usually used for research.”
Most likely, the “specimens” you used for your research paper came from human beings who were intentionally killed by abortion.
What about benefiting from Nazi experimentation?
After World War II, there was much discussion about what to do with knowledge gained from the “data” received from murdered Jews.
Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth of Nations and the pioneer of Jewish Medical Ethics, said that using the Nazi data offers not a shred of meaning to the 6,000,000 deaths. In fact, use of the data would serve to dishonor them even more so.
Baruch C. Cohen continues
“One would hope that our society need not look to the Nazi data to find ‘purpose’ in the victims’ deaths. From the victims’ ashes came moving testimonials of faith in God and man: of a Jewish mother being marched to her death, demanding a knife from a Nazi soldier with which to circumcise her newborn infant, that he might die a Jew; a non-believer dying a martyr’s death on Yom Kippur for the sake of Jewish honor; Jews singing “Ani Maamin” (I believe) as they were being led to the gas chambers. These and many other acts of spiritual heroism remain the definitive legacy of genuine expressions of “Kiddush Hashem” (sanctification of God’s name). Use of the Nazi data adds nothing to the victims’ everlasting memory. Their beautiful legacy remains undimmed and undiminished.”
In ‘The Nazi Research Data: Should We Use It?‘ Sarah Wilson writes:
“The Nazi doctors performed many horrific human experiments in concentration camps
during the Holocaust. Some of the experiments included research on what the human body could
endure when subjected to extreme heights, temperatures, and diseases. Although some argue that
the data is scientifically invalid, many scientists believe that the data could be useful to doctors
and scientists today. Certain ethical theories support the use of the data. Utilitarian ethics seems to suggest that using the data would bring the most happiness for the most people. However, in
the end, using the data would simply perpetuate the horrors that produced it, and may encourage similar experiments in the future. From a pragmatic perspective, the data is just numbers, so some argue that using the data does not have moral significance. However, the data cannot be separated from the way it was produced.Other ethical theories encourage the world not to use the data. Kantian ethics asserts that no one should be treated as a means to an end. The Nazi research data certainly treats people as means to obtain data. Natural law encourages humans to take the most natural course of action.
Since the world would not have the research data if not for the Holocaust, it would not be natural
to use the data.Finally, the divine command theory encourages humans to listen to God and obey what He desires. The Bible says not to even associate with anything evil; therefore, the Nazi research data should not be used because of the evil that produced it.
However, some scientists may believe that the only way to save a life is to use the data. If a scientist makes the decision to use it, she must explain why she made this decision. Ultimately,
the words of Eva Mozes Kor , “Human dignity and human life are more important than any
advance in science or medicine” (1992, p. 7).
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My two cents to this argument.
After the war, my mother and her aunt were the sole survivors of her family. Our Jewish family members either vanished, were killed, moved on, or whatever. To this day we don’t know. It’s certainly possible some of our relatives wound up in the concentration camps, and as a result, wound up being scientific guinea pigs for the Nazis. How would I feel if the data derived from their death were used today?
I look at it from the standpoint of “What if it happened to me?”
If I were the one who was immorally killed in the process of experimentation, I would say “Use whatever you can get out of my death, just be sure to tell people where the data came from, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again!”
But that’s just me. I can’t speak for the millions of Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.
Many Jews say, no, don’t disrespect those killed by the Nazis. Bury their bodies and don’t use the immorally received data. I understand and respect that point of view.
Dr. Carson, you didn’t just keep “a record,” you experimented on intentionally killed human beings, humans who died involuntarily by abortion, and you wrote a research paper on them. This research paper benefited your career and future. To say the least, it is unkind of you to just refer to them as “dead specimens.”
Over 60 million human beings have been killed by abortion in America so far. It’s time to bring an end to this barbaric process of killing our offspring. When we have finally done so, there’s no doubt people will want to use their bodies for experimentation, claiming “We might as well have something good come out of something bad.”
My opinion? Bury the dead, leave the evil behind. I may voluntarily offer myself up if I were executed, I can’t speak for millions of others, or even one other person. The “good coming from evil” argument doesn’t work with me.
Dr. Carson, I believe people like you because it’s obvious you are a decent man. I’m sure another reason they like you is because you’re not a politician, which is why Trump has so much energy going for him. You and trump both suffer from the same problem, you’re not politicians.
The advantage politicians have over non-politicians is they know what to say on all the key issues. You are a work in progress, and I pray for your future.
Stop Abortion Now Everywhere (SANE)
Peter Shinn
President
Pro-Life Unity
United we stand ~ Divided they die
Director
Cherish Life Ministries
Empowering Christians to effectively communicate life issues