Research Using Fetal Tissue

Your Column One article (“Abortion War Snags Research,” Oct. 17) was as frustrating as it was interesting. It should be criminal for any special-interest group, especially the pro-birth minority, to stand in the way of such important and potentially rewarding research. The scientific community gets its human tissue from autopsies and surgery, often the result of events detestable to all (i.e., murder, drunken-driving accidents, etc.).

So far, though, it has been quite acceptable to use tissue from such cases to further our basic medical knowledge and to search for cures to many disabling diseases.

The Bush Administration has no right to deny sufferers of diseases such as Parkinson’s the chance to regain a relatively comfortable lifestyle by preventing the use of tissue from what amounts to a simple, legal and common surgical procedure. The idea that the use of fetal tissue will somehow result in more women turning to abortion is ludicrous.

After 10 years of the present Administration in two opuses, it should be clear that should legal abortion and the use of fetal tissue be shown to be a source of revenue, there would be no discussion and the procedures would commence immediately. For, as our vice president recently said, “Commerce is more important than health.”

MICHAEL J. DE ROSA

Los Angeles

The writer is a Ph.D. candidate in the interdepartmental program in neurosciences at UCLA.