The University of New Mexico and late-term abortionist Curtis Boyd (pictured above) are facing questions of whether Boyd broke the law in obtaining liver and kidney tissue for research. New Mexico Alliance for Life (NMAFL) reports it “has obtained details from a 2015 University of New Mexico research study describing how aborted baby liver and kidney tissue [was] harvested from ‘six fetuses,’ only 15 minutes after the abortion procedure.”
Now NMAFL is calling for state leaders to investigate and for UNM to terminate contracts with Boyd and his late-term abortion facility.
Elisa Martinez, executive director of New Mexico Alliance for Life said:
This leaves many alarming questions concerning how notorious late-term abortionist Curtis Boyd, still serves as a UNM “assistant professor,” abortionist and tissue collection facilitator. The total disregard for human life illustrated in this UNM Department of Pediatrics research study by Dr. Robin Ohls and team is both sickening and horrifying. Death row inmates are treated with greater respect and dignity than these innocent, unborn babies.
UNM’s health sciences center (UNMHSC) and Boyd’s late-term abortion facility have been working together for the past ten years, according to the Albuquerque Journal. UNM’s health science center (UNMHSC) uses fetal tissue from abortions for their research. Until December the abortion facility also trained UNM School of Medicine students on abortion. While the training relationship ended suddenly in December, the Albuquerque Journal reports that the fetal tissue acquisition continues:
UNMH officials also said there was no plan to stop accepting fetal tissue from Boyd’s clinic – despite an internal policy that appears to call the practice into question. The policy does not prohibit the practice, they say, but conceded that its wording could be misunderstood by a “lay” person.
And therein lies the problem NMAFL is calling into question. NMAFL says:
This study brings into serious question as to whether UNM’s Curtis Boyd is changing abortion procedures for UNM to harvest baby livers and kidneys from “six fetuses” in this study. How is it possible for Boyd to provide six, intact “fetuses ranging 12 -22 weeks” for UNM’s Dr. Ohls to harvest? Is Boyd performing illegal partial birth abortions in order to provide Dr. Ohls intact bodies to harvest? The procedure Boyd states he uses up to 20 weeks, involves dismemberment and removal of tissue from the uterus. So how is it possible for him to provide “six fetuses” if their bodies have been dismembered and mangled from the abortion procedure?
NMAFL notes that, “Federal law states that an abortionist is not allowed to change the procedure to collect tissue: ‘No alteration of the timing, method, or procedures used to terminate the pregnancy was made solely for the purposes of obtaining the tissue.’ Federal HHS regulations state: ‘The timing and method of abortion should not be influenced by the potential uses of fetal tissue for transplantation or medical research.’
And NMAFL also points out that “UNMHSC officals told the Albuquerque Journal they have ‘no documents to show how much fetal tissue is sent from Boyd’s clinic to UNM researchers, nor how often.” However, in the study on which NMAFL is reporting, the researchers clearly stays that they had “exactly ‘six fetuses’ in UNM’s possession to use for the study.”
Bioethicist and stem cell researcher, Dr. David Prentice, the NMAFL reports says, has testified as an expert before British Parliament, European Parliament, Canadian Parliament and U.S. Congress and reviewed the UNM study, saying:
This is very basic science, an elementary fishing expedition to look at simple molecular changes and regulation of one particular gene. There is no near-term nor even long-term target for therapeutic application. The experimental design was simplistic and poorly controlled, such that the authors could only “speculate” regarding the implication of the results.
But the partnership between UNMHSC and Boyd’s clinic continues, providing fetal parts to be minced, as the study itself says, for research. The Albuquerque Journal shows some of the agreements and correspondence between Boyd and the medical school:
Boyd has been under fire for for his late-term abortions in Texas and New Mexico many times. He’s admitted to performing abortions on girls as young as nine and 10.
A former ordained Baptist minister, Boyd is a Unitarian who says he prays as he aborts babies: “I’ll ask that the spirit of this pregnancy returns to God with love and with understanding.”
