Wisconsin Personhood Amendment: Front page news, along with Ryan Braun

Need I say more about the watershed moments of both Braun's achievement and the introduction of personhood legislation...

Today's Wisconsin State Journal:

Many Wisconsin abortion foes are cheering the introduction of legislation that would amend the state constitution to extend personhood to the moment an egg is fertilized, although the state's two largest anti-abortion groups are at odds over the approach.

The legislation is patterned after a similar measure that Mississippi voters rejected earlier this month.

Critics say such measures would outlaw all abortions, including in cases of rape and incest, and ban all forms of hormonal contraception, including birth control pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs).

Wisconsin's "personhood" amendment, introduced last week by Rep. Andre Jacque, R-Bellevue, would define the terms "people" and "person" in the constitution to include "every human being at any stage of development."

Matt Sande, lobbyist for Pro-Life Wisconsin, which backs the legislation and is working closely with Jacque, said the amendment "undoubtedly" would outlaw all forms of surgical and chemical abortion. On other issues, "we don't know exactly what it would mean, but our intent is to protect the preborn child at any stage of development from any violent attack, whether chemical, surgical or experimental," he said.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has concluded the proposed language would ban hormonal contraception, said Nicole Safar, public policy director. "This is way out of touch with Wisconsin values," she said.

In a twist, Wisconsin Right to Life, the largest anti-abortion group in the state, has come out forcefully against the personhood amendment strategy, calling it "just plain wrong for Wisconsin."

Read the rest here.

Telling how PPWI acknowledges the abortion-causing effect of hormonal contraceptives, no? And yet certain pro-lifers refuse to address the issue. Cardinal Burke has something to say about that.

PLW: School children surprise Bp. Hying with collection for pregnancy centers

About two months ago, we received a phone call from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Hales Corners. Bishop Hying was going to be saying Mass for the school at the parish, and the school children wanted to surprise Bishop Hying with a gift to thank him.

Bishop Hying’s pro-life convictions are well-known in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. When he was still rector of the St. Francis de Sales Seminary, Bishop Hying and several seminarians could often be found praying at Affiliated Medical Services on Saturdays. One Saturday at AMS inspired Bishop Hying to write this.

continue at Pro-Life Wisconsin

Reminder, it's not too late to sponsor “Mary’s Ultrasound” billboards

Last year’s “Mary’s Ultrasound” billboards were a huge success, in communities across Wisconsin. Viewers in Milwaukee, Green Bay, La Crosse and beyond were touched by a simple image of the preborn Christ Child. The pro-life effort raised the ire of the former president of Catholics for Choice, Frances Kissling, who wrote about the billboards in the Washington Post.

Kissling even referred to Pro-Life Wisconsin as the “grinches that stole Christmas!”

But in order to touch hearts across Wisconsin – and the United States, even! – we need your help.

True to Life funds are dangerously low, and without your help, we won’t be able to undertake the “Mary’s Ultrasound” billboard effort this year.

A $500 donation will pay for a billboard in La Crosse. A $500 donation will pay for a billboard in Milwaukee.

Please help us today! Click here to donate online, or call our office at (262) 796-1111 ext. 10.

PLW: Milwaukee Police Department dispatcher berates pro-lifer for asking for assistance at Affiliated Medical Services

This evening, Milwaukee radio talk show host Mark Belling discussed the situation of the young girl held at Affiliated Medical Services last week against her will [Part 1 here and Part 2 here].

Belling obtained the audio of the phone call that Dan Miller (head of 40 Days for Life of Milwaukee and a witness) made to the Milwaukee Police Department, asking for police to investigate.

Listen to the audio of the MPD call here. You can hear the dispatcher berating Miller, supporting a mother’s “right” to force her daughter into the abortion facility, and completely ignoring the sexual abuse that occurred, resulting in the alleged pregnancy.

As Belling pointed out on his show, dispatchers are not supposed to judge the right or wrong of a situation; that’s what police officers are for.

Anne Schwartz, public relations manager for the Milwaukee Police Department, told Belling the MPD supported the decision the dispatcher made to ignore the volatile situation and not send out an officer.

Pro-lifers’ relationship with the MPD is somewhat precarious, given the arrest of James Marcou earlier this year and the ongoing federal lawsuit against the MPD

Pro-Life Wisconsin

Consider sponsoring "Mary's Ultrasound" billboard

If you remember last year, this billboard was seen through different cities in Wisconsin.  If you are interested in bringing the billboard to your area, contact Virginia.  Pricing is different for each area but if we can get enough people together on this we can bring the message to the whole state!

The face of "choice": Young girl forced into abortion facility in Milwaukee

Earlier today, we posted a comment on our PLW Facebook page asking for prayers for a young girl dragged into Affiliated Medical Services against her will.

The awesome folks at LifeSiteNews saw the post and wrote an article, below.

Pro-life sidewalk counselors outside a Milwaukee abortion clinic Thursday morning say that a preteen girl asking pro-lifers for help was forced into the clinic by escorts and a guardian, and that police have responded saying that they could do nothing.

Tobey Neuberger, a sidewalk counselor from Cedarburgh, said the incident occurred just before 10 a.m. outside Affiliated Medical Services, where she and two other female pro-life counselors gave a “very young” African-American girl literature as she entered the clinic, and told her that she could get more information at a pro-life center across the street. Witnesses said the girl looked anywhere between 11 and 14 years old.

Neuberger says she and her companions were “just incredulous” as they watched the girl come back out and ask for help from the counselors, only to be physically blocked by the escort staff.

Read the rest here.

Please keep this dear girl, a child herself, in your prayers tonight. +JMJ+

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin rakes in $26 million from taxpayers for birth control

From Pro-Life Wisconsin:

Recently-obtained figures from the state of Wisconsin show that from 2007-2010, Planned Parenthood received $26 million from taxpayers for providing “family planning” services under the Medicaid Family Planning Waiver Program. Graph, below, breaks it down by county. Planned Parenthood operates 27 facilities across Wisconsin; two of those provide surgical abortions.


As you can see from the final total, $81.5+ million was paid out across the state from 2007-2010 under the Medicaid FPW program.

Read the rest here.

Wisconsin Family Action endorses Wisconsin Personhood

Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) has endorsed the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment, legislation that would amend the Wisconsin Constitution to apply personhood rights to preborn children at all stages of development. WFA is an associate of Focus on the Family. Click here for the WFA legislative memo urging co-sponsorship of the personhood amendment. Pro-Life Wisconsin agrees with WFA’s legal findings and conclusions.

Ironically, Clarke Forsythe of Americans United for Life - the pro-life attorney Wisconsin Right to Life brought in for their Day at the Capitol in February to oppose a personhood amendment in Wisconsin — seems to be warming up to the idea of personhood! Forsythe recently penned a column in the Washington Times entitled "Saving Personhood" in which he argues that "recognition of the personhood of the unborn child is a movement as old as English common law." According to Forsythe, "[s]tate protection of the unborn child as a person is no longer a novel thing. It grows year by year, state by state, and the public supports it."

For more information on the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment, please go to PersonhoodWisconsin.com.

This a big endorsement for WI Personhood.   WFA lead the charge and is basically responsible for passing the Wisconsin Marriage Amendment, not to mention leading the charge to repeal the terrible sex-ed bill passed recently.  A great organization with a fantastic track record.

Milwaukee abortion workers dance in street after botched abortion

via Pro-Life Wisconsin

This past Friday, October 21, an ambulance rolled up to Affiliated Medical Services to take away yet another woman to a nearby hospital after a botched abortion. Abortionist Bernie Smith was reportedly on duty.

AMS staff can be seen laughing, dancing and doing the limbo as the woman was taken away. One AMS staffer even threatened vigilers, saying, “You’re lucky it isn’t you in the hospital.”

AMS’s consent forms (available publicly on their website, snippet below)  state, in part, “Complications, including death, may occur.”

Those who lobby for abortion’s legality claim that if abortion were made illegal, women would have to resort to dirty, back-alley abortions. But the reverse has actually happened — as was sadly illustrated with Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” abortuary in Philadelphia, the dirty, back-alley abortions are legal and no one is watching.

This is at least the third time this year an ambulance has arrived at AMS after a botched abortion; sidewalk counselors recorded two separate ambulance visits on April 8. Abortion facilities in Milwaukee are not subject to health inspections. Some days the smell of death — blood and flesh — can be smelled wafting out of AMS when the staff open the doors.

AMS has been the site of 40 Days for Life for three years now. Sidewalk counselors and prayer warriors are present at AMS year-round as well. 40 Days vigilers were in front of AMS when this occurred.

Women have been taken to Columbia St. Mary’s after botched abortions, forcing a Catholic hospital and staff to clean up the abortionist’s mess.

Wisconsin Personhood seeks co-sponsorship in state assembly

On Wednesday State Representative Andre Jacque (R-Green Bay) began circulating for co-sponsorship the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment, legislation that would amend the Wisconsin Constitution to apply personhood rights to preborn children at all stages of development. Click here to read the amendment language, and click here to view PLW’s legislative memo.

From a pro-life perspective, the Wisconsin Constitution contains a glaring error at its outset. In specifying the beneficiaries of its human rights, our state constitution leaves out the preborn. It applies rights to only those people who are “born.”

Representative Jacque is proposing a minimal but absolutely essential correction, a personhood amendment, to make the Wisconsin Constitution cover all people, every person, at any stage of development. The amendment seeks to extend the inalienable right to life found in the Wisconsin Constitution to all preborn children from the beginning of their lives. 

Should Roe v. Wade be overturned someday and the abortion issue remanded to the states, an activist Wisconsin Supreme Court could use the word “born” in our current state constitution to deny the right to life of the preborn by interpreting an independent right to abortion in that document. In so doing, the court could nullify any present or future pro-life laws in our state. The changing makeup of the Wisconsin Legislature could also jeopardize any pro-life laws in our state. Every two years our state election process determines the majority party in Madison. Legal protection of the preborn should not (and must not) be contingent upon which party controls the state legislature. The right to life should not be subject to the whims of a politicized supreme court or an ever-changing legislature. 

The introduction of the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment is a watershed moment in the history of the pro-life movement in our state. It seeks to end abortion in Wisconsin, not to regulate or restrict it. We have been working toward the introduction of such an amendment for the last five years, and we thank Representative Jacque for demonstrating the courage of his convictions in finally making it a reality.

The personhood amendment will face stiff opposition from the pro-abortion industry.  Shockingly, the strongest opposition to the bill at this point is coming from Wisconsin Right to Life (WRL). In February WRL published a position paper vowing to oppose any effort to grant Wisconsin’s pre-born babies full constitutional rights as persons, labeling such efforts a “threat to [the] protection of Wisconsin unborn children.” They worked hard to ensure a personhood amendment was never introduced. Having failed in that effort, they are now calling every state legislator demanding that they not sign on to the bill. WRL admits that their legal reasoning for opposing a state personhood amendment is speculative. WRL offers no case law to back up their asserted problems, admitting that they are only “probable”. Pro-Life Wisconsin, on the other hand, offers recent Wisconsin case law clearly demonstrating that the proposed amendment is not a risk to our current, pre-Roe abortion law (Section 940.04, Wisconsin Statutes) by “implied repeal” or otherwise. Click here for PLW’s legal analysis rebutting their misguided objections.

The pro-life movement is founded on the bedrock principle that all human beings, at all stages of their development, deserve full protection under the law. Why oppose proactive people of good will endeavoring to provide full and lasting legal protection for preborn children? Pro-Life Wisconsin remains committed to constitutionally protecting Wisconsin’s preborn children, regardless of opposition from the abortion industry or from within the right to life movement. 

 how you can help at Pro-Life Wisconsin

WRTL urges Wis. Legislature not to support Personhood

From: Barbara Lyons [mailto:BLyons@wrtl.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 11:43 AM
To: 'Wisconsin Right To Life'
Subject: Memo

Dear Members of the Wisconsin Legislature,

Wisconsin Right to Life urges you not to co-sponsor LRB 2859/1 [Personhood Amendment - she decided not to use the word Personhood in the email...], a proposed amendment to the State Constitution being circulated by Rep. Andre Jacque. Despite Rep. Jacque’s sincere intentions, the language of the amendment does not rectify the inherent problems with such an approach in Wisconsin.

1. There is no way that Rep. Jacque can prevent a legal challenge to this amendment and it will be struck down under Roe v. Wade.

2. Implied repeal of s.940.04 is not the major problem created by the amendment. The amendment would be viewed as in conflict with s. 940.04 and the latter law passed, the amendment, will be the prevailing law negating the effect of s. 940.04. Prosecutors will be left with no means to bring charges against a person who performs an abortion because the amendment does not create a crime or apply penalties. A future legislature, if it is willing, would have to pass a new law prohibiting abortion, having negated the one we already have.

More extensive information can be found at http://www.wrtl.org/pa/index.html. Please do not hesitate to call if you have questions.

Barbara L. Lyons

Executive Director

Wisconsin Right to Life

www.wrtl.org/blog

Pro-lifers, read the arguments on both sides.  But what is telling is that WRTL does not offer any alternative, nothing, as to how we could grant the unborn legal protection under law.  I think the WRTL argument is weak, and saying that it would "cost too much" to enact?  If it worked, ....wouldn't the money be worth it? 

I've said it before, I'm on the outside looking in, but from where I sit, the "Right to Life" organizations in the US seem to be more worried about the fact Personhood could infringe on contraceptive methods which also cause abortions. 

The short explaination:

Our proposed personhood amendment is not intended, or worded, as a challenge to Roe, or as an attempt to define personhood under the 14th Amendment. It seeks only to bring into the Wisconsin constitution a true definition of human life as endorsed by Wisconsin citizens speaking through the amendment process. We recognize that its protections cannot be fully effective as long as Roe remains law, but we believe a proper definition of personhood should be in place should Wisconsin be freed from the effects of that noxious decision.

PLW does not believe, nor does it expect legislators to believe, that an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution can remedy the federal tyranny of Roe v. Wade and its pernicious progeny. Still, Wisconsin can honestly state its intention to guard the humanity of all its citizens, including the pre-born, should that be made possible by the reversal of Roe. That is the purpose of our personhood amendment. The foregoing speculations are based on the inapplicable assumption that a personhood amendment challenges or conflicts with existing federal law based on Roe v. Wade. Again, PLW’s personhood amendment accepts Roe as a given, so its definition of personhood cannot be viewed as contravening Roe. No one could attack the amendment based on their rights under Roe.

 For more details check out this Pro-Life Wisconsin doc, or check out the new Personhood Wisconsin website.

Bishop Morlino leads 100 people in prayer at Madison Planned Parenthood

From Pro-Life Wisconsin:
Last night, Bishop Morlino led 100 people in prayer and pro-life reflection (photo, top) in observance of the mid-way point of 40 Days for Life. As the sun set behind him on Planned Parenthood (literally and figuratively, we pray!), Bishop Morlino discussed how the pro-life cause is ultimately in God’s hands; God is asking us to pray and act, and trust in Him.

Bishop Morlino was joined by two priests — Father Jim Murphy of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception parish in Portage, and Father John Putzer (second photo, with one of the Knights of Columbus) of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary parish in Sun Prairie. Thank you to all the clergy who join us in praying for an end to abortion!

Wisconsin Personhood campaign starts in Green Bay, amendment to be introduced this month

“We are excited to announce the launch of a multi-media effort, spreading the personhood message across Wisconsin,” said Virginia Zignego, Communications Director. “The personhood movement has tremendous grassroots support in Wisconsin and throughout the country, and we are excited to be able to spread that message even further.”

A billboard located on Highway 41, south of Green Bay, features people at different stages of development, along with the tagline, “You, Me, Everybody… We’re all just grown-up embryos.” The billboard directs viewers to PersonhoodWisconsin.com, a website launched to promote the personhood movement here in Wisconsin.

To view the billboard, click here. The billboard will move to a different Green Bay location every three months.

“With the recent news that abortions in Wisconsin declined in 2010, we hope this billboard will raise even greater awareness of the humanity of the preborn person and emphasize that, at one point, all of us were just embryos,” said Zignego.

Wisconsin State Representative Andre Jacque (R-Green Bay) plans to introduce an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that would apply personhood rights to preborn children at all stages of development. The amendment is currently in drafting and will be formally introduced in October, Respect Life Month.

“The proposed amendment extends the inalienable right to life found in the Wisconsin Constitution to all preborn children,” said Matt Sande, Director of Legislation. “It seeks to bring into the Wisconsin Constitution a true definition of human life, thus making the highest law in our state cover all people, every person, at any stage of development. We are excited to begin educating the public and the legislature on the necessity of legal personhood. Only by enshrining the right to life in our state constitution will preborn children be afforded full and lasting legal protection.”

The billboard is a collaborative effort between Pro-Life Wisconsin, 40 Days for Life of Green Bay, Personhood USA and Youth Defence, Ireland’s most active pro-life group.

 Pro-Life Wisconsin

Still unclear if Catholic institutions in this state will support the effort or oppose it.  We know Wisconsin Right to Life will actively oppose the measure.

Let's pray folks.  Game on.

Run for the Unborn marks 2nd birthday

This past Sunday, October 10, I(Virginia) participated in the Run for the Unborn, a 5k run/walk in Slinger, Wis [in case anyone is wondering about my time... I beat whatever Matt's time would be].

Many organized runs/marathons support a cause or intend to raise awareness about a particular illness (Alzheimer’s, Down syndome, etc.)

The cause of the unborn — the 55 million who have been killed since Roe v. Wade — is the focus of this annual event. The tagline, if you will, is “Run for the Unborn …because they will never learn to crawl.”

Think about that.

The run happened just 2 days after the state of Wisconsin released its annual report on the number of abortions in the state in 2010. Abortions dropped in 2010, thank God; but 7,825 abortions is 7,825 lives snuffed out, 7,825 babies who were “unplanned,” inconvenient, too expensive, or diagnosed with a birth defect.

A photographer from the local newspaper was there, so I’m sure pictures of the event will surface soon. You can read the Milwaukee Catholic Herald’s article about last year’s inaugural Run for the Unborn and also view pictures from 2010.

As with last year, we had great response from the community. One of my thoughts about this event was, Wow, it’s so great that the city of Slinger has been so supportive. And then I wondered if the city of Milwaukee would support a similar effort.

- Pro-Life Wisconsin

“40 Days for Prayer to Keep Abortion Safe & Legal.”

We’ve written in the past about Forty4Forty, an effort by NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin to raise money during 40 Days for Life, whereby abortion supporters make a monetary pledge.

In the windows of Affiliated Medical Services, where 40 Days for Life is observed in Milwaukee, we noticed something different this year — a new poster.

That’s right — “40 Days for Prayer to Keep Abortion Safe & Legal.” Faith Aloud sells the poster and an assortment of buttons for $45. The list of daily prayers are on Faith Aloud’s website. Sounds like prayers so that an aging movement doesn’t die off to me.

What does this mean? Pro-aborts have recognized that because of prayer, women choose life. Through prayer, hearts and minds are changed. Thank you to everyone who stands with us in praying for an end to abortion!

Pro-Life Wisconsin

You know what they say about imitation.... 

Let's face it, the abortion industry's real prayer is to keep abortion safe, legal, and profitable.

Bishop Hying to give invocation at Pro-Life Wisconsin's Annual Auction Dinner

Bishop Donald J. Hying, the auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, will give the opening invocation at Pro-Life Wisconsin's Annual Auction Dinner on Saturday, October 22. The dinner will be held at Olympia Hotel and Resort in Oconomowoc. Bishop Hying will be in attendance the whole evening.

Silent auction and hors d'eouvres begin at 5pm and dinner begins at 7pm. Join us!

Click here to register online or to print off a registration form.

Walter Hoye will be the guest speaker. Hoye is the founder and president of the Issues4life Foundation and a core member of the National Black Pro-Life Coalition. Hoye, a strong personhood advocate, was jailed for defending his constitutional rights to sidewalk counsel outside abortion facilties. Hoye brought a constitutional challenge to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, widely regarded as the most liberal appeals court in the nation, which recently sided with him in ruling that the City of Oakland’s “bubble zone” ordinance “unconstitutionally suppresses speech based on the content of its message.”

40 Days for Life begins next week!

From Pro-Life Wisconsin. If you're in the Madison area, don't miss the kickoff (see final item.)

The fall 40 Days for Life campaign officially begins Wednesday, September 28. PLW and our affiliates will once again be organizing and participating in 40 Days for Life, which will be observed this fall in Appleton, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, Racine, Wausau and across the border in Rockford, Ill.

There have now been eight coordinated 40 Days for Life campaigns since 2007, mobilizing people of faith and conscience in 337 cities across all 50 of the United States plus communities in Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain, Denmark, Georgia, Armenia and Belize.

During these unified efforts, participants witnessed countless blessings from God:

- 1,332 individual campaigns have taken place in 387 cities;

- More than 400,000 have joined together in an historic display of unity to pray and fast for an end to abortion;

- More than 13,000 church congregations have participated in the 40 Days for Life campaig

ns;

- Reports document 4,313 lives that have been spared from abortion — and those are just the ones we know about;

- 53 abortion workers have quit their jobs and walked away from the abortion industry;

- 14 abortion facilities completely shut down following local 40 Days for Life campaigns.

To get involved, call PLW toll-free at (877) 463-7945 or email info@prolifewisconsin.org.

Madison's 40 Days for Life Kickoff will be held Tuesday, September 27 at St. Peter Church in Madison (5001 N. Sherman Avenue). We'll gather between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m., and the program starts at 6 sharp. It will be a potluck dinner (main course will be provided).

Dr. Nancy Fredericks will be the guest speaker. Dr. Fredricks is the whistleblower who exposed the University of Wisconsin's secret plans to perform late-term abortions at the Madison Surgery Center, leading to the massive, successful statewide pro-life uprising that led to the cancellation of those plans and the hasty departure of the abortionist. Without her courageous stance, the MSC would likely be performing late-term abortions. Still, Dr. Fredericks has graciously thanked Vigil for Life, Pro-Life Wisconsin and the 40 Days for Life effort for their roles in stopping the treacherous plan. Come join us for her first ever public speaking engagement on the Madison Surgery Center saga.

Photo: The line of pro-aborts screaming at pro-lifers praying during a Madison Surgery Center rally on the UW campus on February 6, 2010.

Chancellor of UW-Madison defends university's fetal research

More follow-up on the issue of aborted fetal tissue used in research. Backstory here.

Rep. Andre Jacque has an excellent op-ed in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Respect for human dignity is essential in the authorization and conduct of scientific research, a point underscored by numerous and horrific past failures to establish or follow such protocols. Yet as a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with substantial coursework in the biological sciences, I heard the declaration from more than one of my professors that the ethical questions surrounding pushing the boundaries of scientific inquiry should be "set aside and dealt with later" if there was "great potential" for medical breakthroughs.

Imagine what atrocities can be justified by such a philosophy! We can do better. I have introduced Assembly Bill 214 to establish reasonable standards for human tissue research and to prohibit the sale or use of aborted fetal body parts for experimentation or other purposes.

The whole op-ed is outstanding. Read the entirety here. Wish I had written that myself!

The chancellor of UW-Madison sent the below letter attacking Rep. Jacque's bill to all legislators. Spin, spin, spin. The letter is a testament to the degree of intellectual rationalization and modernism in our society as a whole. See the line, "Nothing we are doing is illegal.".............. Which is the whole point of the legislation! Everything Hitler did was legal, too, remember that?

UW Fetal Research

More on fetal tissue research from the Milwaukee Journal

A follow-up post from yesterday's post on using aborted fetal tissue in research.

On Sunday, there was a column in the Milwaukee Journal opposing a ban on aborted fetal tissue research.

I submitted a letter to the editor and it will be published tomorrow (or you can read it online today.)

And here is the Milwaukee Journal editorial board on the issue, stating moral concerns hold no sway in this brave new world we're living in.

In a blog post on the issue, the Milwaukee Journal states they will be publishing commentary from Medical College of Wisconsin researchers this week (MCW performs research with aborted body parts, as does UW-Madison).

Catholic doctors/medical professionals, please weigh in. The time is now.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist: "Ban on fetal tissue research would be a mistake"

From Pro-Life Wisconsin:

The below article was in the Sept. 10 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Sept. 11 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal. Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, writes about Rep. Andre Jacque's bill, currently in the Wisconsin legislature, that would ban the use of aborted fetal body parts in research projects in the state. Read the bill here. Despite Still's lengthy list of medical research benefiting from aborted fetal tissue, one cannot escape the fact that the purported benefit derives from human beings that are killed and experimented upon without their consent.

The legislation bans persons from knowingly and for valuable consideration acquiring, receiving, or transferring a fetal body part. It also bans persons from knowingly providing, receiving, or using for experimentation a fetal body part. Fetal body part is defined to mean a cell, tissue, organ, or other part of an unborn child who is aborted by an induced abortion.

University of Wisconsin (UW) officials already attacked the bill, claiming that it will have a “chilling effect” on the biomedical research UW Madison is currently conducting using aborted fetal tissue. Click here for a Capital Times article detailing the UW’s opposition to AB 214 and Rep. Jacque’s and PLW’s response.

There is documented evidence of UW conducting research on human fetal brain and pancreatic tissue, most recently a 2000 fetal brain cell study conducted by Su-Chun Zhang of the UW-Madison Department of Medical Sciences used immature neural cells from fetal human brain tissue of 15-20 gestation weeks “after elective termination of intrauterine pregnancies” to study neurological disorders including multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. The study acknowledged Dr. Dennis Christenson, a late-term abortionist, for his “assistance in this project.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Ban on fetal tissue research would be a mistake

Tom Still

A report last week in PLoS Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, offers a ready example of why Wisconsin lawmakers should tread carefully around a proposal to ban research using fetal tissue.

Researchers at the University of California and Texas A&M discovered that a somewhat mysterious soft tissue found in the fetus during early development in the womb plays a vital role in the formation of mature beta cells, the sole source of the body's insulin.

Scientists believe the discovery may lead to new ways of addressing Type I and Type II diabetes, conditions that have reached epidemic proportions in the United States and beyond.

It just the latest example of how researchers in Wisconsin and beyond use cells derived from human fetal tissue to pursue cures for chronic diseases, to develop and produce vaccines, and to conduct basic research on a wide range of human health issues.

A bill introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature would make it a crime for Wisconsin researchers to continue using those cells, even though they have done so legally, ethically and effectively for 50 years or more.

Lawmakers who believe they are merely standing firm against abortion should think twice about the far-reaching effects of this bill on medical research and the state's innovation economy.

Assembly Bill 214 and Senate Bill 172 would prohibit "a person knowingly and for valuable consideration acquiring, receiving or otherwise transferring a fetal body part in this state."

The identical bills define cells and tissues as fetal body parts, and they also ban "providing, receiving or using for experimentation a fetal body part" in Wisconsin - even if there was no "valuable consideration."

If passed, the bill would effectively halt valuable work in scores of laboratories at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Medical College of Wisconsin and beyond, shut down long-standing research projects and essentially chase many researchers and emerging companies out of the state.

Click here to read the rest. To submit a letter to the editor, click here.