A New Mexico woman is suing a local abortion center for giving her aborted daughter’s body to the University of New Mexico for fetal research without her knowledge and consent.
The Stream is reporting on the announcement by Jessica Duran, who received an abortion from Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) in 2012, who claims the abortion center did not properly inform her about what would become of her daughter’s remains.
During a press conference at the University of New Mexico yesterday, Duran said “my right to choose was violated” by SWO.
“They take advantage of women like me in frantic situations by not giving us all the facts and information we are entitled to,” Duran said.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed at the Second Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, SWO provided Duran with a consent form indicating that “tissue and parts” of her aborted baby could be used in medical research. But this form lacked specific information and she did not read it closely because she was distraught at the time she signed it. Nor was she aware that SWO was the sole provider of fetal body parts to the University.
It was not until 2015 that she realized what may have been done to the remains of her daughter.
“To know my child was used as a science project, a child I loved and wanted, it’s devastating,” Duran said.
“I was never informed of the University of New Mexico’s collaboration with SWO for research which appears to have influenced SWO employees to encourage me to abort my daughter.”
Her attorney, Michael Seibel, told the Albuquerque Journal that the clinic failed to give Duran proper notice under law that her fetal body parts could be used in medical research, and that she should have been given a separate consent for donation.
UNM Health Sciences Center
The suit also charges Duran never received documents regarding where the aborted remains went.
Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for Southwestern Women’s Option, said the clinic had not been served with the suit, and that it stands by its procedures and care.
“Southwestern Women’s Options has been caring for New Mexico women and their families for more than 40 years,” Brewer said in a statement to the Journal. “During that time, the clinic has provided quality care in accordance with state regulations.”
However, according to Elisa Martinez, director of New Mexico Alliance for Life, “We have evidence that suggests UNM and SWO have been violating women’s rights to informed consent since 1995.”
Both Martinez and Duran are asking New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas to criminally investigate SWO and UNM.
They won’t be the only group investigating the relationship between fetal body parts procurement at SWO for use at the University. The Congressional Select Panel on Infant Lives issued a criminal referral to Balderas earlier this year for “prosecution of various acts” by SWO and UNM.
In fact, it was documents obtained by the Panel that showed the transfer of infant body parts approximately 11.5 and 12.7 weeks old from SWO to UNM at around the same time that Duran had her abortion while 13 weeks pregnant.
“UNM Health Sciences Center and Southwestern Women’s Options can no longer deny wrongdoing,” Martinez said. “There are victims out there who were deceived and whose rights were violated in the harvesting of aborted babies’ bodies.”
“My baby was not just a clump of cells,” Duran said. “That’s the lie that is being exposed: my baby was fully human, and her body was highly valuable for the sum of her parts, for UNM research projects.”
Watch the recorded press conference from NFMAL here.
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