Recently, the University of Pittsburgh has been reported to be involved with infanticide through experiments and have failed to discuss their involvement. Dr. Joerg Gerlach, who is a professor, researcher, and surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh, and whose lab is tax-payer funded, along with collaborators, has been accused of being deeply involved in experiments on babies delivered live from Planned Parenthood Western Pennsylvania. These procedures were claimed to follow the cGMP guidelines, meaning the fetus must remain in one piece and not be exposed to any feticides. Therefore, the baby must be alive when delivered. This means that the babies most likely died as they were placed in bags and on ice for transport, or as their bodies were cut open to obtain their liver. We, the University of Pittsburgh community, are demanding answers as to their involvement with these experiments.

Origional Live Action article: https://www.liveaction.org/news/babies-aborted-alive-livers-research/

The letter to be sent is the following: 

Dear Vice Chancellor Supowitz:

We are students, faculty, and graduate members of the Pitt community, and we are writing to you as the new semester begins seeking urgent clarification about the University of Pittsburgh’s role in recently reported horrifying cases of infanticide through experiments on live-aborted babies.

As members of the Pitt community, we are calling on the University to provide full disclosure and transparency about the University’s involvement in fetal experimentation, to yield full accountability on the infants harmed by specific Pitt researchers’ experiments, and ultimately to cease involvement in these atrocities against humanity.

Recent reports document that Pitt scientists and faculty, including Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach, Dr. Eva Schmelzer, Dr. Bruno Gridelli, Dr. Robert Thompson, Dr. Beatrice Chen, Dr. Audrey Lance, and others, are deeply involved in taxpayer-funded experiments with aborted baby body parts and taxpayer-funded abortion programs at Planned Parenthood Western Pennsylvania, including supplying aborted baby body parts to the University’s Tissue Bank.

Most shockingly, published studies implicate at least Dr. Gerlach, Dr. Schmelzer, Dr. Gridelli, Dr. Thompson, and potentially others in infanticide through harvesting body parts from intact fetuses delivered alive in late-term abortions.

Gerlach, Schmelzer, and Gridelli published a study in 2012 describing their transplantation experiments maximizing the number of viable liver cells by harvesting from late-term fetuses delivered whole through labor induction abortions at UPMC’s ISMETT facility in southern Italy. In 2017, the Italian colleagues of these Pitt scientists described the experiments as an “in vivo”—in a living system—model developed by Pitt’s Dr. Gerlach.

Gerlach et al credit the in vivo method of harvesting intact livers from intact fetuses as their special method to obtain an unprecedented number of living cells. In papers published as recently as 2019, they describe obtaining the same unusually high number of viable cells from livers harvested from local late-term abortions in Pittsburgh. We are deeply troubled that Pitt scientists’ infanticide through harvesting experiments on babies aborted alive is continuing here in America.

As members of the Pitt community who pay tuition, contribute our own technical skills, and make donations to the University, we respectfully request that the University of Pittsburgh provide full, detailed, and documented answers to the following questions by XX September 2019:

1) What is the relationship between the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center?

2) What is the relationship between Pitt and UPMC, and the ISMETT facility in Sicily, Italy?

3) How are faculty and staff such as Drs. Gerlach, Schmelzer, Gridelli, and Thompson shared across entities like Pitt, UPMC, and ISMETT?

4) How many scientists and how many research projects at the University of Pittsburgh used fetal cells, tissues, or organs from any induced (non-spontaneous) abortions for any research purpose in 2018?

5) Of the projects identified in response to (4), which ones were supported, or conducted by Pitt researchers who were supported, by government grants?

6) How many projects using aborted fetal tissue has Dr. Gerlach participated in during his tenure at the University of Pittsburgh, and which ones were government funded?

7) What documents exist from Dr. Gerlach’s work to develop the “in vivo model” practiced at ISMETT and how much of his work developing these experiments was done at the University?

8) What evidence or documentation exists, if any, to show if and how the fetuses in the 2012 and 2019 studies died before the abortion procedure was completed?

9) Please provide a copy of all Pitt IRB documents considering or approving Dr. Gerlach’s, Dr. Schmelzer’s, and Dr. Gridelli’s work with aborted fetal livers.

10) What is the relationship between Pitt and Planned Parenthood Western Pennsylvania?

11) What are all the sources of aborted fetal tissue for the Pitt Tissue Bank and for other projects using aborted fetal tissue at Pitt?

Thank you for your timely and complete answers on this critical topic.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXXXX