Pro-life group calls for boycott of cosmetics company using aborted fetal cells

Oct 29, 2009 / 15:28 pm

The organization Children of God for Life released a statement on Tuesday blasting the pharmaceutical company Neocutis for using cells harvested from an aborted fetus in the development of anti-aging creams. The pro-life group is calling for a boycott of the company's products.

Debi Vinnedge, the executive director of Children of God for Life, lambasted the company for their disregard for life, saying, "It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain. There is simply no moral justification for this."

The “Processed Skin Proteins" (PSPs) being used in Neocutis' burn and wound treatments were taken from a electively-aborted 14-week-old male fetus donated by the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland. 
The baby boy's cells were used to create a working cell bank by multiplying them in lab cultures until they numbered in the hundreds of millions. 

According to information available about the process on the Neocutis website, "the skin sample was taken at the period of scarless wound healing in compliance with legal and ethical rules of the University Hospital of Lausanne (Switzerland)." 

In a medical paper published by the same hospital in 2006, researchers supported the employment of fetal cells in the establishment of cell banks after observing that "fetal cells have the capacity of extraordinary expansion," where "from one organ donation it is possible to produce several hundred million fetal skin constructs."

The paper further explains that fetal cells "are very resistant against physical and oxidative stress when compared to adult skin cells under the same culture conditions," which makes them a good source for exploitation and a replacement for other, albeit less controversial, means of producing PSPs.

This fetal cell bank was "originally established for wound healing and burn treatments," the hospital said.

However, an additional destination for these fetal cells has been the development of anti-aging cosmetic creams.

"There is absolutely no reason to use aborted babies for such selfish motives," Vinnedge stated.  "It is anti-life, anti-woman and counter-productive as Neocutis is about to find out!"

Vinnedge warned that there would be repercussions for Neocutis, "We know there are companies using moral sources for collagen and skin proteins.  We intend to publicly promote these other cosmetic companies competing with Neocutis that are willing to step forward and contact us."  She pledged that competing companies willing to verify in writing that their products are "morally produced" would gain the Children of God for Life´s endorsement.

She also invited immediate response from individual clients, imploring "women who are using Neocutis products to throw them in the garbage and to contact the company to express their concerns."

CNA was unable to reach anyone at Neocutis for comment on their use of fetal cells.