A New Mexico University has halted a training program using doctors from a late term abortion clinic which provides the University with fetal tissue for research. The Albuquerque Journal newspaper has reported that the University of New Mexico (UNM), which is a publicly-funded institution, has cut ties with Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO), a late-term abortion facility owned by Texas abortionist Curtis Boyd and has been the subject if a previous undercover sting conducted by Live Action. The abortionist is one of a handful of doctors in the country that performs abortions in the third trimester. He claims to be a former Baptist minister and admits that he knows he “is killing.” Southwestern Women’s has a location in Dallas and one in Albuquerque.
Pro-lifers Tara and Bud Shaver who founded the pro-life group, ProtestABQ, have diligently exposed the late term clinic for years. In July, Tara Shaver filed a formal criminal complaint with the Attorney General of New Mexico asking for a complete and thorough investigation of Boyd’s clinic following revelations that Planned Parenthood was taking part in a gruesome baby parts operation. Shaver indicated Boyd was also using the body parts of babies he aborted for research. She based her allegations on documents obtained by prolifewitness.org indicating SWO staff members are, “ in fact, harvesting baby body parts for use in medical research.”
The documents included copies Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) informed consent paperwork which every abortion patient must sign indicating that Boyd and (SWO) may be using aborted babies in medical research.
The 2015 consent form (image above) states:
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“I understand that the pregnancy tissue will be removed from my body during this procedure. The pregnancy tissue may be examined here at the Clinic and the Clinic doctors may dispose of the tissue according to the law. The pregnancy tissue may be used for medical research.”
This consent form from 2012 (image below) says, “tissue and parts will be removed during the procedure.”
The form goes on to state, “and I consent to their examination and their use in medical research and their disposal by the clinic and/or physician in the manner they deem appropriate.”
Protest ABQ pointed out that New Mexico has a law prohibiting the selling of body parts. But despite the law, UNMH officials admitted to the Journal that they have been accepting fetal tissue from Boyd’s clinic for a decade claiming the abortionist is not paid for the baby body parts. In addition, Dr. Richard Larson, executive vice chancellor and vice chancellor for research at the UNMHSC, the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, told the Journal that Boyd’s clinic is the school’s only supplier of fetal tissue.
To justify the use of dead children in the late gestational age, Larson told the Journal that the “fetal tissue” they collect from Boyd will, “reduce the mortality of premature babies, especially these extremely premature babies.” Officials also claim that their grisly research will reduce the likelihood of blindness, cognitive defects and other anomalies found in newborns between 24 and 30 weeks, the same age as the babies Boyd kills. In a May 2015 letter to UNMH, the Journal reports that Boyd specified that in abortions of less than 20 weeks, his doctors use “aspiration, dilation and evacuation.” Abortions after 20 weeks involve “feticide” by injecting the fetus with the drug Digoxin, Boyd’s letter states.
Images: Albuquerque Journal
University officials still find the use of “fetal tissue” acceptable. What they are now publicly distancing themselves from is their training program with Boyd’s clinic and fellow abortionists staff who were described as “faculty” under the training agreements with UNM. The decision by UNMHSC officials to no longer send medical fellows or residents to Boyd’s clinic, follows a letter from New Mexico state Rep. Rod Montoya and other legislators who questioned top Health Sciences Center officials last July about the relationship with Boyd’s clinic and the use of “body parts” from women who have abortions there, the paper states. Montoya told the Journal that the argument could be made that the residents and fellows were helping the clinic augment its staffing for abortions.
“Initially, it had the appearance of being a transaction of sorts,” Montoya said, according to the Journal. “Of staffing in return for the body parts. That’s the appearance, and I informed them, ‘that’s how it appears to me,’ ” adding that he is concerned that there is no oversight of abortion clinics in the state.
“We know that the vast majority of New Mexicans believe we should not have a free-for-all when it comes to abortion,” the Representative said.
In addition to the using fetal tissue for research in New Mexico a former employee of Boyd’s testified that he also had an agreement with the Director of Fetal Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center to use “large babies” for fetal research there. The former staffer, Nita Whitten, made this statement at a “Meet the Abortion Providers” workshop sponsored by the Pro-life Action League of Chicago, directed by Joe Scheidler:
“One thing that happened at the clinic that I worked at that was incredibly devastating, right before I left. Dr. Boyd had made an agreement with a doctor, and I cannot name this doctor because I just don’t think it would be wise to name him today, but he was the Director of Fetal Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at that time. He had made an agreement with this doctor to give him our large babies for him to do fetal research on. They did this, and I believe at the time, it was against the law. I don’t know if it is now, and I’m not familiar with the legal terms because I’m not a lawyer, but I remember we were told not to tell anyone, and they only came in secret to get the babies…He had them come in and they dissected a baby for us in our lab room so we could see what they were doing with the body parts. They did that right there and everybody filed in and looked. I looked at it. I pretended like I was being brave and walked out. It made me sick.”
Bud Shaver described the University’s “fetal tissue research” program as unethical and immoral and said that he is now calling for them to cut all ties with the late term abortion doctor, “The University of New Mexico (UNM) has been caught red handed trafficking and using baby body parts for their medical research,” he told Saynsumthn.
“This is unethical and immoral which is why Protest ABQ is calling for UNM to cut all ties with Curtis Boyd at Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) which is their sole provider of baby remains. The fact that the residency training rotation has been stopped at SWO is merely a bandaid on the bigger problem which is UNM’s overall radical abortion agenda which is what Protest ABQ is demanding UNM to halt,” he added.
Read the Journal’s report here.
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