Ut Humiliter Opinor

Here’s some more fuel to the fire for the abortion/stem cell debate. Fourteen weeks is before viability, but the harvested cells are apparently good for a medical procedure.

I can see a day coming where perhaps women will be offered money for the cells of an aborted fetus for medical purposes, which is a really scary proposition.

I am an admitted waffler on abortion. I find it personally repugnant, but have a hard time telling someone what to do in regards to personal health and moral issues. Stories like this give me pause because the end game - where we trade one potential life for another - just seems terrifying to contemplate.

Fetal skin cells help heal burn wounds in children

The research team, based at University Hospital of Lausanne, obtained a 4-cm skin donation from a 14-week aborted male fetus. Cells were expanded in culture and used to seed collagen sheets, and then grown for two more days before the sheets were applied to the burn wounds. The fetal cells were used to treat eight children considered to be candidates for traditional skin grafting, approximately 10 days after their injury. As the cells biodegraded, they were replaced every three to four days. “These cells stimulate spontaneous healing of the wound through secretion of multiple growth factors,” Hohlfeld said. The average time to healing was 15.3 days after the first cell application. The cosmetic and functional results “were excellent in all eight children,” who had little degradation of the new skin with no retraction or breakdown of the healed surfaces, the research team reports. The one patient who had dark skin had recovery of skin pigmentation. The researchers estimate that the one fetal skin donation could yield “several million” skin constructs. “We only need one very small biopsy once, giving us the potential to treat thousands of people,” Hohlfeld pointed out. He considers it possible to obtain effective skin cells from miscarriages of second trimester fetuses.