Dr. Ben Carson said he did not collect cells from aborted babies, and had nothing to do with the cells themselves — but he strongly defended medical research that uses cells from babies who died by abortion-on-demand. Yesterday, we covered the controversy of a 1992 experiment Dr. Carson participated in that used the cells of babies aborted as late as 17 weeks. Dr. Carson wrote on Facebook:
The study was about tumors. I won’t bore you with the science. There were four doctors’ names on the study. One was mine. I spent my life studying brain tumors and removing them. My only involvement in this study was supplying tumors that I had removed from my patients. Those tissue samples were compared to other tissue samples under a microscope. Pathologists do this work to gain clues about tumors. I, nor any of the doctors involved with this study, had anything to do with abortion or what Planned Parenthood has been doing. 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. I am sickened by the attack that I, after having spent my entire life caring for children, had something to do with aborting a child and harvesting organs. My medical specialty is the human brain and even I am amazed at what it is capable of doing. Please know these attacks are pathetic attempts to blunt our progress.
If he had stopped there, he may have been OK. But on The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, he added, “Just because they get the fetal tissue” from abortion-on-demand, “does it mean they should throw it out? Of course they don’t. That’s how science is advanced.” He even told CNN, “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?” But as I wrote on Thursday, if you as a researcher participate in a study that you know will use tissue from babies who were aborted, you bear some moral culpability. If all researchers refused to use aborted babies’ cells, there would be no market for their sale. I know you’re never supposed to mention the Nazis in polite political discussion, but in this context, it’s a clarifying comparison: If some of those tissues had been collected by Dr. Mengele, would it be “foolish” to discard them, Dr. Carson? The wisdom of man is the foolishness of God.
