If Fetal Tissue ‘Is Not a Person,’ Then None of Us Are People

Image credit: Science Photo Library/Getty Images
Image credit: Science Photo Library/Getty Images
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Editor

In a tweet seemingly dismissive of just about every universally understood scientific development in modern times, a senior editor for Romper and big-time abortion advocate claimed last week fetal tissue “is not a person.”

Danielle Campoamor made the claim five times in a recent tweet:

There are a handful of issues with Campoamor’s tweet, one of which the suggestion that those who have abortions and those who suffer miscarriages are the same. They’re not.

So what is “fetal tissue,” then?

The most glaring problem is Campoamor’s odd claim that fetal tissue and the tissue of humans outside the womb are, for some reason, not the same.

There are, of course, developmental differences, but there’s no doubt fetal tissue is human tissue. In fact, fetal tissue is in some ways even stronger than mature, adult tissue.

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“Early- to mid-gestation fetal healing is characterized by rapid re-epithelialization, lack of inflammation and restoration of normal tissue architecture,” a 2009 study of differences between fetal and mature human tissue stated. “In contrast, adult and late-gestational skin heal less rapidly and with the formation of a scar.”

Even Heather Boonstra, director of public policy for the left-leaning Guttmacher Institute, which is devoted to advancing so-called “reproductive rights,” penned an article in 2016 about the wonders of fetal tissue.

In it, Boonstra chronicled the ways fetal tissue has “led to major advances in human health, including the virtual elimination of such childhood scourges as polio, measles and rubella in the United States.”

“Today,” she continued, “fetal tissue is being used in the development of vaccines against Ebola and HIV, the study of human development, and efforts to treat and cure conditions and diseases that afflict millions of Americans.”

With all this in mind, I’m having a bit of trouble understanding how fetal tissue is not also human tissue.

Dr. Calum Miller, an Oxford-educated ethicist, told Faithwire last year he wasn’t against abortion until he studied science and medicine in college.

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“The unborn are not just ‘clumps of cells,’” he said. “They are valuable human beings and members of the human community. There is no dispute that what is growing inside the woman is a new, individual human being, with its own body, and its own interests, and its own vulnerability.”

Without fetal tissue, none of us would be here. If fetal tissue “is not a person,” as Campoamor claimed, then I guess none of us are people.