This is not a gruesome inventory from a fictitious Frankenstein monster flick. Rather, it is an actual 1999 price list from a legally- operating body parts list from a legally-operating body parts wholesaler called Opening Lines.

       More and more, it is becoming clear that the abortion industry has developed a secondary source of income -- selling body parts of aborted fetuses. Most of these intact body parts are the result of late-term abortions. The abortion of choice for baby-parts buyers and sellers is partial-birth abortion.

       In a partial-birth abortion procedure, the entire baby is pulled feet first with forceps through the birth canal -- except for the last three inches. Holding the base of the babys neck, the abortionist plunges scissors into the skull to make an opening by which the brains are suctioned out before completing delivery of the now-lifeless infant.

       Unlike other types of abortion procedures, in a partial-birth abortion, the babys body is generally delivered whole and intact.

       As grotesque at it may sound, body parts from unborn babies are quickly becoming a commodity worth billions of dollars in the emerging biotechnology industry. With abortion clinics being used as human "chop shops," medical researchers, universities, pharmaceutical companies and fetal tissue brokers stand to win big financially. Bioengineers envision large-scale use of harvested body parts from unborn children as sources for organ and tissue repair for the aging baby boomer generation.

       In his revealing book, The Human Body Shop: The Cloning, Engineering, and Marketing of Life, Andrew Kimbrell cites many medical and economic experts who testify to the growing market for fetal parts. Economist Emmanuel Thorne predicts that fetal organ and tissue transplant will dwarf the present organ transplant industry, turning unborn babies into a vital and lucrative commodity.

       Kimbrell also cites Timothy J. McNulty, a noted scientist in transplant technology. In 1987, McNulty wrote in the Chicago Tribune, "We are on the threshold of changing ourselves. I realize this opens a Pandoras box, a can of worms, or whatever you want to call it, but I foresee growing fetuses someday for spare parts."

       Tragically, most experts feel that any public outrage of "growing" fetuses for medical use will be short-lived. Thorne points out, "The potential uses of fetal tissue make the temptation to conceive with intent to abort almost inevitable."

       The horrific story of harvesting aborted body parts was recently broken by a medical technician turned informant. "Kelly" (a pseudonym to protect her true identity) worked for a firm that collected fetal body parts from abortion clinics specializing in late-term abortions. She recently told her story to Life Dynamics, a pro-life organization.

                     "What we did was to have a contract with an abortion clinic that would allow us to go there on certain days," Kelly said. "We would get a generated list each day to tell us what tissue researchers, pharmaceutical and universities were looking for. Then we would examine the patient charts. We would screen out the ones we didnt want. We did not use specimens that had STDs [sexually transmitted diseases or fetal abnormalities. We only wanted the most perfect specimens that we could give to the researcher."

       Kelly is referring to babies aged 16 weeks to 30 weeks gestation. Of the hundreds of late-term abortions Kelly witnessed each week, she estimates that only 2% were for fetal abnormalities. Kelly says that the rest "were very healthy; 95% of the time, (the woman) was just there to get rid of the baby."

       Kelly reported seeing at least 30 or 40 abortions every week on babies above the age of viability outside the mothers womb.

       Kelly states that her company would sell the fetal tissue to private contractors, which would in turn sell the tissue to universities and researchers. She reiterates the fact that there was a high demand every week to buy such fetal tissue.

       In a WORLD magazine article titled, "The Harvest of Abortion," writer Lynn Vincent related one researchers needs for aborted tissue.

       "August J. Sick of the San Diego-based Invitrogen Corporation requested kidneys, hearts, lungs, livers, spleens, pancreases, skin, smooth muscle, skeletal muscle and brains from unborn babies of 15-22 weeks gestational age," Vincent reported. "Mr. Sick wanted 5-10 samples of each per month."

       In a WORLD magazine article titled, "The Harvest of Abortion," writer Lynn Vincent related one researchers needs for aborted tissue.

       "August J. Sick of the San Diego-based Invitrogen Corporation requested kidneys, hearts, lungs, livers, spleens, pancreases, skin, smooth muscle, skeletal muscle and brains from unborn babies of 15-22 weeks gestational age," Vincent reported. "Mr. Sick wanted 5-10 samples of each per month."

       WORLD called Mr. Sick to verify that he had indeed ordered the parts. (He had.) When WORLD pointed out that Invitrogens request of up to 100 samples per month translated into many dead babies, "Mr. Sick -- sounding quite shaken -- quickly aborted the interview."

       Like Mr. Sicks fetal request, the following are sample "protocols" or dissection orders, for numerous body parts of aborted babies, obtained by Life Dynamics.

Tissue Requested: Whole Brain (22-23 Weeks).
Specifications: Passive Frozen Acceptable.
Shipping: Ship on Dry Ice.
Donor Criteria: Prenatal (20-24 weeks).
Procedure: I) Whole Eyes 2) Fresh, remove eye with as much optic nerve intact as possible and within two hours if possible.
Procedure: Dissect fetal liver and thymus.

       The abortion clinic staff must have a signed consent form in order to use the tissue from the aborted baby for research. The clinic can then comfort any uneasiness or guilt the pregnant woman may be feel-ing by telling her that, with her abortion, she is helping to protect and preserve life.

       A sample of this consent form, that clinics require women to sign in order to harvest the body parts of her aborted baby, appears on the chart below. (Click to see the Chart which is located at the end of this article)

       Does a woman have a legal right to sign such a consent form? Should a woman who is defining the terms of her babys death also be permitted to authorize use of her babys body parts?

       Kimbrell says that "legal consent for use of the organs of a cadaver almost always involves an individuals, or next of kins, permission to use a body after an unavoidable death. It is arguable that such consent is not ethical when the individual giving the consent is also deciding that the death will happen."

       Kimbrell describes a gruesome account of Nazi-like experiments in fetal research. In the early 1970s, there were several documented cases, both in the United States and abroad, of experiments deliberately using live fetuses for research. One macabre study conducted by a U.S. and Finnish team involved the decapitation of 12 fetuses (up to 20 weeks gestation) aborted alive through hysterotomy. The heads were kept alive by perfusion through the internal carotid artery in order to study cerebral oxidation of glucose. This experiment was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health.

       Is the selling of unborn baby body parts legal? In 1988, the Reagan Administration declared a moratorium on all U.S. federally-funded research involving transplantation of fetal parts harvested from elective abortions. However, on January 22, 1993 --just two days into his administration, and on the twentieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade -- President Bill Clinton issued an executive order lifting the fetal tissue ban.

       Kimbrell says, "President Clinton's order signaled the start of a virtually unregulated industry in fetal parts."

       While the Uniform Anatomic Gift Act makes it a federal crime to buy and sell fetal tissue, abortionists have engineered ways to jump through the legal loopholes protecting themselves.

       So how do these entities operate legally? As reported in WORLD, Life Dynamics investigated the financial arrangements between abortion clinics and fetal body parts providers.

       Heres how it works: The fetal parts provider pays an abortion clinic a fee for the privilege of obtaining body parts. Re-searchers, in turn, pay the provider a fee for the privilege of receiving fetal claim there is no buying or selling of fetal tissue.

       The abortion clinic "donates" dead babies to the fetal tissue provider. Researchers then compensates the provider for the cost of tissue recovery. Its a simple matter of a "service fee" -- compensation for services such as dissection, blood tests, preservation and shipping.

       The fetal body parts provider pays a "site fee" to the abortion clinic. In this case, it is a simple "fee for space" arrangement.

       It becomes apparent why the abortion industry lobbies so hard against any federal or state ban on partial-birth abortion. The body parts is a very lucrative part of the abortion industry. Pregnant women are charged a substantial amount for a partial-birth abortion by an abortionist who, in turn, sells the fetal body parts out the back door.

       Syndicated columnist Mona Charen writes that the body parts re-seller Opening Lines boasts that they offer "the highest quality, most affordable, freshest tissue prepared to your specification and delivered in the quantities you need, when you need them."

       Sometimes abortions go horribly wrong (from the abortionists perspective). Despite best efforts to terminate the life of the fetus before completed delivery, occasionally a child is born alive.

       This is exactly what happened to Kelly while working at an abortion clinic. She tells Life Dynamics, "A set of twins at 24 weeks gestation was brought to us in a pan. They were both alive. The doctor came back and said, 'Got you some good specimens -- twins. I looked at him and said, 'Theres something wrong here. They are moving. I dont do this. This is not in my contract. I told him I would not be part of taking their lives. So he took a bottle of sterile water and poured it in the pan until the fluid came up over their mouths and noses, letting them drown. I left the room because I could not watch this."

       Kelly did come back into the room to dissect the twins once they were dead. She said, "thats when I decided it was wrong. I did not want to be there when that happened." But Kelly says it did happen, with her present, again and again.

       She says, "At 16 weeks, all the way up to 30 weeks, we had live births come back to us. The doctor would either break the neck or take a pair of tongs and beat the fetus until it was dead."

       Life Dynamics asked her if an abortionist ever altered the procedure to obtain the best specimens needed for a particular day.

       Her answer to them was, "Yes, before the procedures they would want to see the list of what we wanted to procure. The abortionist would get us the most complete, intact specimens that he could. They would be delivered to us completely intact. Sometimes the fetus appeared to be dead, but when we opened up the chest cavity, the heart was still beating."

       She was asked if the abortion procedure was ever intentionally altered to deliver an intact specimen, even if it meant a live baby? "Yes," said Kelly, "that was so we could sell better tissue, so that our company would make more money."

       The late-term, or partial-birth, abortion procedure is the method of choice for abortionists trafficking in harvested body parts. This procedure is a three-day process. During the first visit, laminaria, a tampon-like product made from seaweed, is inserted into the womans cervix. This laminaria swells, forcing the cervix to dilate.

       The next day, the woman returns and has the laininaria removed, then has a new set inserted, causing even more dilation to occur.

       By the third day, enough dilation has occurred to allow the baby to be forcibly extracted. Kelly tells Life Dynamics that, during the dilation process, the woman is sent to a nearby motel.

       Women occasionally go into labor and deliver a live baby. 'They would call the nurse, and the nurse would call the doctor who would go to the motel room and pick up the woman and the fetus," Kelly says. "Thats when they would call us and say, 'Okay, weve got a couple of specimens here, or 'Weve got one specimen. We would go to the clinic and the specimen would be in a bucket, sometimes alive. When we would open the chest cavity the heart would still be beating."

       Should scientists be able to continue performing their fetal tissue research without limitations? Is there something morally wrong with using unborn babies as mere spare parts?

       With no current constitutional protection for the unborn, there are limited barriers to prevent an already very lucrative industry into becoming a billion-dollar industry at the expense of precious unborn lives that are not even aware that their developing body parts command such a price tag.

       Mary Angela Edwards is producer of the hard-hitting video expose' Almost Born: The Shocking Truth About Partial-Birth Abortion. To obtain a copy of Almost Born, call Liberty Alliance toll-free: 1-888-761-2574.