Dr. Ronna Jurow, a self-described "pro-choice" ob-gyn who used to work for Planned Parenthood, told Fox News last Thursday that "there's no question" the fetus would be alive during tissue collection. She based her comments on what Pitt told the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the comments that David Seldin, the university's assistant vice chancellor for news, told Fox.
Documents uncovered by Judicial Watch last week show Pitt sought to "develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples obtained throughout development (6-42 weeks gestation)." According to the NIH, 40 weeks is considered full term.
The documents further revealed that Pitt sought to minimize "ischemia time … to ensure the highest quality biological specimens."
Seldin told Fox News that ischemia is a "[l]ack of blood supply to a part of the body. In this case, ischemia time refers to the time after the tissue collection procedure and before cooling for storage and transport. It does not have an impact on how the procedure is performed, which is always at the discretion of the attending physician and determined with the patient’s health as the top priority."
Pro-life journalist David Daleiden quickly responded to Seldin's statement on Twitter, saying that "[i]f ischemia starts when the organ is cut off from blood, and that happens AFTER the ‘collection’—that means there's bloodflow DURING ‘collection.'" Him and many other pro-lifers are concerned that the research conducted by Pitt required late-term babies to be delivered alive or killed immediately before delivery.
