The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center announced its plans to cut ties with a late-term abortion clinic last week.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that medical student fellows and residents will no longer be trained at the Southwestern Women’s Options, a late-term abortion facility run by Curtis Boyd. The university also is considering ending Boyd’s position as a volunteer faculty member, the report states.
Last year, two medical students from the university trained at the late-term abortion facility, the report states. The school also had a student training agreement with the abortion facility in 2011-2012, according to the report.
Operation Rescue reports that medical students were trained to do second-trimester abortions at Boyd’s abortion clinic, one of the few in the U.S. that performs abortions through all nine months of pregnancy.
“Through an on-site clinical rotation these procedures required students to dismember pre-born children in the womb and then extract their tiny bodies in pieces through the 25th week of pregnancy,” according to the pro-life group.
While the university stopped its training agreement with Boyd, it has not cut all ties with his abortion clinic. University researchers plan to continue collecting aborted babies’ body parts from the late-term abortion clinic and using them for research, the newspaper states.
A university spokesperson said they do not pay Boyd for the aborted babies’ body parts. The abortion facility also did not receive money to train the medical students, leading some to question whether the students’ work was exchanged for the aborted babies’ body parts.
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“Initially, it had the appearance of being a transaction of sorts,” said New Mexico State Rep. Rod Montoya last week. “Of staffing in return for the body parts. That’s the appearance, and I informed them, ‘that’s how it appears to me.’ ”
University officials dismissed Montoya’s comments, saying the students created additional work for the late-term abortion facility, according to the newspaper.
A university spokesperson told the Associated Press that the reason for the change is because university is looking for a more academic approach for training. The spokesperson said the decision does not have anything to do with the controversy involving aborted babies’ body parts.
Operation Rescue says fetal tissue harvesting is in violation of New Mexico law, which forbids the use of aborted babies’ body parts in medical research. The group Protest ABQ filed a formal complaint in July with the New Mexico attorney general asking for an investigation into the illegal use of aborted babies’ body parts for research. The complaint is pending, according to the pro-life group.
“UNM is a publicly funded state institution, but like other leaders in the state, they feel no need to obey the laws and provide transparency about the abortion agenda they embrace and promote. This is a disgrace that will require legal action on our part,” said Bud Shaver, executive director of Protest ABQ.
Operation Rescue also questioned whether Boyd is using the illegal partial-birth abortion method to preserve the babies’ bodies for university researchers. The pro-life report continues:
According to a 2015 training agreement between Curtis Boyd and UNM, Boyd describes abortion procedures beyond 20 weeks as causing “feticide” using a drug called digoxin. He specifies that after the procedure, the fetal tissue will then be given to UNM.
However, digoxin, a drug that essentially causes the baby in the womb to die from a heart attack, contaminates the tissue, making it unusable for medical research. This fact was publicized widely over the summer as the Center for Medical Progress released several videos that showed Planned Parenthood abortionists and representatives from biotech companies clearly discussing the topic of digoxin and how it taints the fetal tissue.
This has led to suspicions that Boyd may have lied about using digoxin and is instead using the now illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to obtain body parts that are suitable for medical research.
Procedures used by Curtis Boyd during the late-term abortion procedures that have resulted in the use of human remains for research must be investigated.
The University of New Mexico has had its hands in the abortion industry for many years. The university also runs its own abortion clinic, which is funded with taxpayer dollars. The UNM Center for Reproductive Health performs abortions up to 22 weeks gestation, according to Operation Rescue.
“Protest ABQ calls on UNM to stop violating the law by halting the practice of harvesting aborted baby remains and closing down the UNMCRH abortion facility. This will restore the rule of law and do great good for the community of Albuquerque and for the lives of children who will be saved in the womb as a result,” the group said in a statement.
