John West provides a, er, surprising and enlightening picture of the theistic evolution great. Not for the faint of heart:
Among evangelical Christians and other people of faith in America, Collins has long been the equivalent of a rock star. But Collins’s days of glory as a non-partisan role model, especially for the faith community, may be numbered — and it’s not just because of the latest scandal over the origins of COVID-19.
In recent months, Collins’s agency has become embroiled in controversies over its funding of stomach-churning medical experiments involving body parts harvested from aborted babies. The disclosures about the experiments followed Collins’s repeal earlier this year of restrictions on the use of aborted fetal tissue in NIH-funded research…
This year, however, Collins’s reputation has taken continued beatings, not just because of evasive answers about the role of the NIH in gain-of-function research in China, but also because of publicity around NIH-funded experiments that many Americans, especially people of faith, would find horrific.
NIH’s Gruesome Experiments with Baby Parts
In May, reports surfaced about macabre NIH-funded experiments that utilized body parts collected from aborted human fetuses to create “humanized mouse and rodent models with full-thickness human skin.” For the experiments, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh cut into tiny pieces “human fetal spleen, thymus, and liver organs” and “then transplanted the tissues and hematopoietic stem cells into irradiated… mice.” Researchers also sliced off skin from the scalp of the aborted babies and then grafted the fetal skin onto the mice. In the words of the scientists: “Full-thickness human fetal skin was processed via removal of excess fat tissues attached to the subcutaneous layer of the skin, then engrafted over the rib cage, where the mouse skin was previously excised.”
The body parts used for these experiments were harvested from aborted human fetuses with a gestational age of 18-20 weeks. By that age, an unborn baby has brain waves and a beating heart. He can hear sounds and move his limbs and eyes, and his digestion system has started to work. In other words, the human fetuses whose organs were harvested for this NIH-funded research were well-developed tiny humans, not blobs of undifferentiated cells.
In August, an additional project funded by the NIH came to light thanks to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Judicial Watch and the Center for Medical Progress. The lawsuit was filed after Collins’s NIH dragged its feet in responding. According to Judicial Watch, the documents show that the NIH has provided nearly $3 million in tax dollars to support a fetal organ harvesting operation by the University of Pittsburgh in its “quest to become a ‘Tissue Hub’ for human fetal tissue ranging from 6 to 42 [!] weeks gestation.” …
Although Collins likes to tout his personal faith, he appears to have very little concern for any sort of conscience rights of fellows religious believers who disagree with him. After all, he dutifully served in a previous administration that repeatedly weakened conscience protections for medical workers opposed to abortion and that violated federal law by turning a blind eye when California mandated abortion coverage in all private insurance plans.
John G. West, “The Appalling Moral Failure of Francis Collins” at Evolution News and Science Today
And much more.
So that’s the public face of theistic evolution…
You may also wish to read: Francis Collins, well-known theistic evolutionist, resigns his position at NIH. If either of these political/ethics matters, as detailed, are factors, his sudden resignation would send the stories down the news hole promptly and conveniently.