Ben Carson vehemently defended his prior use of aborted fetuses for his past research, claiming this week that it was the smart thing to do. In an academic paper, published in 1992 co-authored by the GOP Presidential candidate, Carson described working with material "from two fetuses aborted in the ninth and 17th week of gestation." according to CNN.
Even as he continues to criticize Planned Parenthood calling for their defunding on the heels of several undercover videos that have surfaced purportedly showing organizational officials selling tissue from aborted fetuses, Carson insists his research was different. "There is absolutely no contradiction between the research I worked on in 1992 and my pro-life views," Carson said in a statement. "The issue of fetal tissue has everything to do with how the tissue is acquired. My primary responsibility in that research was operating on people to obtain diseased tissue for comparison to banked tissue samples. Killing babies and harvesting tissue for sale is very different than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it, which is exactly the source of the tissue used in our research."
Reports show that fetal tissue research has recently helped develop a vaccine against Ebola and is currently being used to develop treatments for blindness, HIV and other illnesses.
Carson has been vocal about his belief that a fetus terminated in the early part of the second trimester is a human being. He also stated "At 17 weeks you've got a nice little nose and little fingers and the hands and the heart's beating and it can respond to environmental stimulus," he told Megyn Kelly of FOX News, according to Yahoo! Health.
In the July interview with FOX News, Carson stated there was "nothing that can't be done without fetal tissue" and that babies aborted at 17 weeks were clearly human beings.
"You have to look at the intent." Carson claims. "To willfully ignore evidence that you have for some ideological reason is wrong. If you're killing babies and taking the tissue, that's a very different thing than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it," according to the Washington Post.
On Thursday, Carson summed up his feelings on Facebook:
"I, nor any of the doctors involved with this study, had anything to do with abortion or what Planned Parenthood has been doing," he said in a post. "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."
