Exposing Fetal Organ Harvesting at UCSF with Nick Reynosa of SERNOW

In this episode, Herb Geraghty is joined by Nick Reynosa of SERNOW (The Society for Ethical Research Now), an organization working to expose the injustice happening at the University of California San Francisco.

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Intro/outro music: "Belize," by Monty Datta. https://montydatta.bandcamp.com/track/belize 

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Learn more about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org!

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Transcription:

Maria Oswalt: Hello and welcome to Episode 14 of the Rehumanize podcast.

 

[Music plays]

 

Herb Geraghty: Hello and welcome to the Rehumanize Podcast. Today I am being joined by Nick Renosa who is the Director of Public policy of the Society For Ethical Research or SERNOW. Their mission is to document, expose, and mobilize against unethical fetal organ harvesting.  We’re going to talk a little bit about exactly what that means and the work that the Society For Ethical Research is doing to stop it. So welcome Nick. 

 

Nick Reynosa: Thank you for having me, Herb.

 

Herb Geraghty: So the focus of the SERNOW campaign has really been on the medical research going on at the University of California San Francisco.  Over the past year I’ve been down to UCSF a couple times to help raise awareness about this issue and I think the attention on it is only growing so I think it’s really important that you’re here today to tell our listeners about it.  But before we get into it, I don’t usually do this, but I do wanna give a quick warning that what we’re gonna talk about gets pretty dark.  It’s the Rehumanize Podcast we deal with Consistent Life Ethic issues, but um so nothing’s ever cheery, but this particularly for me at least I think is sort of another level at some points.  So I just want to throw that warning out there that this episode might be a little more disturbing than uh past episodes.  So Nick, can you tell us what is going on at UCSF?

 

Nick Reynosa: So just briefly going over UCSF fetal harvesting program: UCSF is, you know, the abortion-training capital of the world. It is also a leader in pro-abortion legislative advocacy, and it's an essential link in the supply chain for human fetal organs and experimentation and a lot of this information has been uncovered through the brave work of David Daleiden; our group, Society For Ethical Research is partnering with Pro Life San Francisco and Survivors LA to, you know, be a nonviolent active--you know--citizen activism in the Bay Area to document and expose these human rights violations and call for more ethical alternatives. And the procedures that are done at UCSF are definitely among the most extreme abortion procedures in the world. And definitely, you know, you talk about “rehumanizing”, this is the highest level of dehumanization of the unborn I’ve seen and I’ve been doing pro life work about ten years.  And so, today we’re just gonna talk about the work that we’ve done, the pressure that we’ve put on them, and also the procedures themselves and how they may violate federal law, and also sort of the ethical implications with the scientific community and with covid and other things--all of the different things that are entailed in fetal tissue research.

 

Herb Geraghty: Okay, so I have a hard time even talking about this. I think with a lot of sort of pro-life work that I end up doing, it’s easy to sort of, I guess, think of it in as like a philosophical point that like especially when you’re talking about embryos who obviously are human beings, then they deserve human rights, it’s sort of easy to not really think of them as persons even though we know that they are and they deserve rights.  That’s not what we’re talking about. This, when we say fetal organ harvesting and this unethical research, were not talking about, like, embryonic stem cell research which I think is a lot of people’s first impression.  These are--I think, Nick-- usually viable children, Right?

 

Nick Reynosa: Uh, a great many of them. The weeks--usually are between 18-24 weeks. Anything above 21 weeks would be viable, so I think it’s definitely fair to say a great many of them, and we have, at least (and this is a very conservative number) at least 288 victims in that age range, just from the contracts that we’ve discovered through the great work of like Robert Burg. He’s kind of piecemeal found these contracts, and we’ve kind of extrapolated the number 288. So definitely dozens, possibly hundreds, of viable fetuses in that age range. And you know it's interesting-- you’re vegan, Herb, and I think a lot of people who, you know, care for animals as well, it's the reality of the violence that, you know, brings them to care. And when we talk about these late term procedures it’s sort of, like, distinguishing--you said, between the philosophical and the embryonic to this real flesh and blood violent act and that, I think, that’s why this is such a hard topic to talk about.

 

Herb Geraghty: Yeah, yeah I know, I think--I just, I know that late term abortion (or we’re not supposed to call it; later abortion, post-viability abortion) is less common and I think that’s like a talking point that you hear a lot, that it’s only X percent of abortions in the US; but when you look at, you know, an ultrasound of a child at 21 weeks or 24 weeks, that looks like a person. They really don’t look that far off from what we look like when we’re born, especially because some of them are born and are human beings given the right to life by the state at that point. And it's just-- I don't know. I think for me late term abortion, it just, it's so hard to think about because I think it's easy to dehumanize someone who doesn't really look like what your idea of a human is. But the people doing this, they know. They can see their face and that’s so upsetting for me. But the other thing that I wanted to ask about: something that SERNOW talks about a lot (and I know I’ve done a lot of work with Terrisa Bukovinac, with Pro-Life San Francisco) is this idea that there are children not just being killed in the elective abortion procedures, then being used for medical research; that there’s a possibility, and probability, that some of them are being born alive.

 

Nick Reynosa: Definitely. You see, the thing is that a traditional later term abortion is very violent, very traumatic dismemberment and such things like that digoxin which is a toxic substance. It's very similar to potassium chloride, which is actually used in lethal injections of inmates. So that gives you an idea of the level of toxicity of the substance. But anyway, in order to have pristine tissue, the doctors have to get more creative with these procedures, and there are 2 main procedures. There’s a live dismemberment or D&E, which is where the extremities are removed, and then you have an intact abdomen, which is then dissected afterwards. And then you also have a procedure known as en vivo, which means “in the living”, which was actually invented at the University of Pittsburgh. (So we have this sort of macabre connection to San Francisco and Pittsburgh with this, unfortunately.) But these procedures allow the procedure to be less traumatic physically on the body, and it makes it more suitable for experimentation later. But the problem is, because it's less traumatic, it reduces the certainty of fetal demise. This is why many professional abortionists view these procedures as sort of beyond the pale and far too risky, and they'll refuse to do them. And this is the same thing with staff and patients. There was one medical journal that I read talking about how over 90 percent of patients wanted assurence of fetal demise, and many physicians and staff agreed because the idea of a born alive or a live birth during an abortion would be traumatic for the doctor, for the staff, for the patient. So even in the abortion community these are considered extreme procedures, and according to the Society For Family Planning, up to 50 percent of the time these children are born alive. And if they are not given care, that would be a violation of federal law. And that’s why we’re seeking transparency, because if we know that there’s been, for example, 288 victims, we don’t have any transparency as to the number that were born alive or the care that they received or did not receive. And the lack of reporting is a crime--not just the denial of care, but the lack of reporting as well. So these are all goals that we’re working towards to try to have more transparency and accountability at UCSF.  

 

Herb Geraghty: Mmhm. I think that that statistic, when I first heard it, I immediately didn’t believe it: that up to 50 percent of the time, these infants could be being born alive and then dissected for medical research. And I remember I think Terrisa first posted something about that or told me that. And I immediately assumed, I think, “oh Society For Family Planning, what is that, some kind of pro-life group?” that that’s where the stat is coming from (not that, I think, you know, pro-life groups are making up stats; but things can look a little different.) So I immediately went to their website and it's [a] pro-abortion [group]. There were studies on there that were like the harm that the lack of access to abortion causes, you know, this is not some sort of like right-wing conspiracy to accuse doctors of killing actual infants. This is happening, and it's not even that controversial. The doctors are just like “yeah, that’s what happens”--which to me is insane, that that's going on and that this isn't a national conversation.

 

Nick Reynosa: Well, I think there are three parts to that, Herb. The first part that people need to understand, is that in order for a typical abortion to be successful, there has to be some kind of damage done to the fetus; usually through like the digoxin, or through blood loss, or organ damage, or something like that. But especially with the en vivo procedure, there’s really no blood loss, there’s no digoxin. So the only thing that would really cause fetal demise is just the fact that it’s a very young fetus. So especially for the ones that are over 21 weeks, they’re coming out of the birth canal, they haven’t really experienced any trauma, so if they’re old enough, that’s why the numbers are so high.  Another issue is--and I think in the movie Gosnell it really touches on this well--you have a certain percentage of abortionists who are practicing what I would call ‘civil disobedience’ where there are abortion regulations on the books. For example, like the “guarantee of care for infants born alive”, where they feel that those laws are immoral, and they’re deliberately, as Gosnell said, you know, disobeying those laws intentionally. And then, thirdly, you have pro-abortion politicians who look the other way; and not to go easy on the Republicans either, because they haven’t been super strong in enforcement either when they’ve had the opportunity. But you factor those three things together and it makes sense how those  horrible things can happen. And I think regardless of whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, if the law states that they are to be given care, then whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life is irrelevant. You follow the law or you pay the consequences.

 

Herb Geraghty: Yeah, I remember this kind of discourse came up a lot back in 2019, when the Republicans were really pushing for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which basically, I think, was an extension of the current laws on the book that say: these children born alive during abortions deserve healthcare, and they should be treated as any other child born at that gestational age. But with this law they were attempting to, sort of, give that teeth and make it more enforceable and prevent situations like what we’re talking about. And I just remember thinking that the friends that I have, the colleagues that I have, who genuinely believe that “healthcare is a human right” and say that kind of thing, and say, you know, “everyone deserves healthcare.” And then they are willing to just exclude this group of people who are born alive during abortions and just, like, at best they can be ignored and they can die on their own; at worst we’re going to dismember them and use their body parts for medical research. 

And it’s just so unfortunate like for me, as someone who does believe healthcare is a right, I’m an advocate for that sort of outside my work with Rehumanize International; to see this group of people just completely denied even stuff like comfort care, and instead are being dissected alive. This issue--I just, sometimes with a lot of anti-abortion stuff, I think that--I get concerned that I am losing my mind, like I--I must be wrong. Like there’s no way I live in a society where, routinely, completely legally, children are just being killed. And about half the country is fine with that. And our politicians are doing almost nothing to stop it. And the ones who are doing something to stop it are just talking about, you know, defunding it. And I feel like I must be wrong; like maybe, pro-choice people have to be right. But then I look at the evidence that’s right in front of me, and it’s like no. This is happening; and it’s not on the news every night. Like maybe Tucker Carlson will run a segment on abortion every 6 months and that’s the best we can ask for and I just don’t understand why I…

 

Nick Reynosa: Well I think there’s several factors. We live in a… I often think about the Milgram Experiment where fake doctors told people to shock people, so we obviously defer a lot to scientific experts. And in a lot of ways that’s good, but the thing is, unfortunately, the stuff we see at UCSF is just part of a long history of bad ethics and science. I can think of the Mengele experiments, the Tuskegee Airmen experiments, experiments against the mentally handicapped, and so forth. Basically what it is, is when you have people that are otherized, or made less than--whether it’s Jewish people or African American people or handicapped people or whatever the case may be, in this case, the unborn--the typical standards of ethics are reduced. And also I think sometimes in this search for the greater good or what have you that scientists, engineers, you know, I live in Silicon Valley and sometimes they say move fast and break things. Well, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.  And when we look at  sort of like the gold-standard of scientific ethics, there’s been pushback from the scientific community about these basic protections for patients. And that just reminds me that we constantly have to aspire for our science to be better and push our scientists to be better and respect their knowledge, but they’re not perfect. Just because you wear a white coat or a black coat or a blue coat, violence is violence, bad ethics is bad ethics.  I think if we take that principle we can do better. And you know just briefly you were talking about the extremism.  I think about other issues, sometimes, where the smallest, most common sense regulation is seen as tantamount to a full abolition. You know, like, if we oppose these procedures somehow that can amount to The Handmaid’s Tale.  It’s not a really logical, rational discourse, and I don’t think these people are being fair or intellectually honest, because abortion rights in America would not change drastically if these procedures stopped. But a lot of time it’s framed in that way because any kind of anything less than full cartes blanche is seen as tantamount to The Handmaids Tale or something. I don’t think we’re going to get very far if that’s the level of discourse that we’re having.

 

Herb Geraghty: Well, I think that from the pro-choice side, I think that almost has to be the level of discourse. Because when we start to say okay, a viable child, someone who is now 24 weeks old, well they deserve rights, why doesn’t that make sense for a 21 week old or a 20 week old. And then you just become pro-life, which is what I’m hoping they do.  But what you were saying about the history of sort of medical experimentation I think really holds true. And it is important to know that throughout history, especially when you think of things like gynecology and reproductive healthcare, the really sordid and just racist history of a lot of that in the US, really just like extensive abuse of black women’s bodies, to sort of make medical advancements is something that this sort of reminds me of in some ways. But it makes me think, you know, we’re not against medical advancement.  I want, you know, cures for the diseases that they’re working on and I want to improve our ability to help people with disabilities and all of these other things.  We’re just saying that there are other means that you can go about this with.

 

Nick Reynosa: Absolutely. And, you know, especially the topic on everyone’s mind now is Covid-19 and I was thinking about the relevance of our work as far as, they were talking about the different Covid vaccines that were coming out. And some were positively sourced through fetal cells, and some were not. And I’m 100 percent pro-vaccines as long as they’re ethically sourced. And the concern that I had was for your average person that’s not like us, like we’re deeply invested in the pro-life movement, if someone came to them and said I can give you your normal life back if you take this vaccine that was possibly sourced with fetal cells.  The average person probably isn’t going to care.  They’re just gonna go “give me my normal life back.”  But the thing is that’s why, if we were able to completely ban fetal experimentation, we wouldn’t be put in these possibly difficult situations,  Thankfully, we do have ethically sourced Covid vaccines and I would totally recommend that everyone take those ethically sourced vaccines. But I’m just concerned that we’re not always going to be that fortunat,  and I don’t wanna ever be put in a situation where normal people have to make that very difficult decision. And we’re very pro-healthcare, we’re very pro-science.  The Trump Administration has given 20 million dollars to ethical alternatives which was something to the effect of 10 times greater than the current amount for that particular [project which] they cancelled, which was like 2 million dollars.  

 

Herb Geraghty: And that project you’re talking about was the one that required the 2 …

 

Nick Reynosa: Yes, that was the UCSF contract, correct.  To be clear: there are, I believe, over 100 fetal programs throughout the country with funding of the NH $115 million, but when the Trump administration cancelled that particular one at UCSF, citing lack of transparency and safeguards and so forth, they replaced it with a 20 million dollar fund. But I think those who are experts in those alternatives, they use something called pluripotent cells which are adult stem cells which have the advantage of also having the flexibility of fetal cells; because one of the things that scientists like about fetal cells is they’re very malleable, so if you can have adult stem cells that have malleability, then you kind of get the best of both worlds. So that’s an experiment that they’re working on, but I totally agree with what you said.  We’re totally pro-progress but we don’t take a utilitarian approach on this.  It’s not like you only have to abort this many fetuses to save this many people, because if you use that kind of logic to justify 100 people, 1000 people, 1000000 people it never ends.  But if you have a principle that the patient is paramount and the patient is not there to serve others, then you abolish that type of experimentation and you don’t use that utilitarian approach.

 

Herb Geraghty: And I mean sort of as a catch-all I’m quick to say I oppose fetal organ harvesting, but that’s not entirely true.  I’m not against medical research on cadavers who have died of natural causes.  I know people who’ve donated the remains of their child after miscarriage to medical research and I’m not opposed to that.  I think what’s important to make clear is that these are elective abortions, and as a result, because Trump did cancel one contract, there’s still many [experiments being done] and a lot that are privately funded. And I’m sure Joe Biden does not have the same qualms about fetal tissue research that I do. So we’ll see what his funding looks like, but that is essentially creating a monetary demand for elective abortion.

 

Nick Reynosa: Well, particularly when you think about the parameters specifically that UCSF mentions in their contract. You know, they want fetuses of a certain gestational age, they want fetuses that are not the result of sexual violence, they want fetuses with no abnormalities. So not only does that take [away] many of the pro-choice talking points, like sexual assault or fetal abnormalities or things like that, but it also creates--let’s say you’re a woman who’s planning to have a normal first trimester abortion, but they need candidates for these second trimester abortions (and I’m not saying that I have any evidence that any one particular woman did this) but I’m saying that, in order to meet those parameters, you have to have women that are far along, like I said 18 to 24 weeks, that they haven’t resulted from sexual violence and they have no fetal abnormalities. So that sort of narrows that group. And so if you’re looking for candidates, that could create an incentive to extend the pregnancy to do that. And also by wanting the procedure to be a certain way, some doctors have brought up the fact that there are ethical concerns, because the patient should be the one that’s wanting this procedure a certain way, not the doctor. Because the doctor may have an incentive to extend the pregnancy to have that particular time frame.  That could create an incentive as well, so I totally agree with that.

 

Herb Geraghty: Yeah. There’s also the, I’m not sure if there’s evidence of UCSF doctors doing this, but I remember what came out in the tapes that David Daleiden released in the undercover footage at Planned Parenthood at least, there was evidence of someone claiming at least that they were altering the type of procedure that they’re doing, in order to get these contracts, to be able to use the tissue more effectively for medical research. And that I believe is illegal, right?

 

Nick Reynosa: Absolutely, especially when you talk about the en vivo abortion. When you look at just a picture of the abortions that were banned through the Partial Birth Abortion Act, and when you look at a picture of the en vivo abortion, they’re extremely similar, to the point where just the manner in which the fetus exits could make the procedure illegal. David Daleiden talks about this; and if that is the case then it is a violation of law, yeah.  That’s why oversight, or lack thereof, is so important because we can’t trust the industry to follow these regulations. We can’t trust the honesty or transparency, so we can’t trust the media--because it’s only independent outlets that are reporting this. Occasionally Tucker Carlson will, but it’s pretty limited. But yes, I do agree that the procedures could be altered and that that would be illegal.

 

Herb Geraghty: Another thing that I wanted to talk about that I’ve learned recently related to this topic too is, what exact types of research is being done or what the exact projects are? I know one at least was a sort of human mouse experiment.  I don’t fully understand it.  Could you just explain what that is?  I’ve seen pictures and they’re horrific, especially as someone who is vegan. And I organized around, when I was in college, stopping the violence against mice in Pitt’s research labs and the pictures of that upset me outside of the abortion question.

 

Nick Reynosa: So I’m not a scientist, so this is the highschool version of this. But essentially what they do is, some of the main organs that they harvest are the thymus and the liver. And a lot of the research they do is related to immunotherapy, because they’re trying to do things for HIV [or similar conditions], so the immune system is of great interest to them.  So by injecting the human organ tissues into the mice, what they’re attempting to do is to give the mice an immune system comparable to the human immune system.  Therefore they can experiment on the mice to see the reaction of different immunotherapy situations, and that would help them theoretically with HIV or other things like that. But the thing that’s so horrific about it is, in order for the liver tissue or the thymus tissue to be suitable to be injected into the mice, it has to be of top grade, and it has to be as normal as possible. So--and I mean we’ve all seen the movies where someone dies and they put in on ice and it goes on a helicopter and they try to transplant-- and it’s very similar with fetal tissue research, because you’re talking about, in one instance the language was a maximum of six hours between removal from the fetus and the use. Because they want that tissue to be brand new fresh. And so to give you a perspective on that, at Zuckerberg General Hospital, in San Francisco, these abortion procedures take place in the building called 6G and literally I would say probably like 300 yards away is the fetal experimentation lab.  It’s like a 5 to 10 minute walk away.  Just one building over.  And that’s how fresh this tissue is sometimes. And so I’m just trying to give people a perspective on--give them, like, a real-world picture of how this is literally a dissected organ out of a fresh cadaver into a living mice, within hours sometimes.

 

Herb Geraghty: Yeah, while the mother, the patient, is still in recovery for it.  I just find that so, I don’t know, traumatic to think about, sort of going through the very invasive procedure of a late-term abortion. Especially when, like this, where no fetucide is used. And then sort of as you are recovering your, parts of your child are being injected into mice in order to create these humanized mice, to then torture the mice through cruel experimentation. And that’s why I gave the warning on this episode that this is gonna be a little dark because I just don’t--I feel like my brain doesn’t even comprehend that there are people who go into work everyday, and do this for a living and that in many cases our tax dollars are paying for it with grants; and probably even more so, there are private businesses that are looking to profit off this once the research is complete. 

 

Nick Reynosa: Definitely, you know, I often think we think of--I’ve heard the saying like “the comfortable pro-choice view” that kind of doesn’t acknowledge the violence of abortion and doesn’t acknowledge the humanity of the fetus, but I do think there’s sort of a “comfortable pro-life view” and I really appreciate you talking about this topic, Herb, because not everyone does.  This is definitely a more advanced topic, it’s much grittier, it’s much more honest. And I think that there are people out there that are very well-intentioned, good-hearted, and they’re pro-life but they haven’t--this is the worst of the worst, and they may not have sort of encountered that yet or been exposed to it.  I think all aspects of the pro-life movement are important, and none of it should be ignored, but I definitely think for people who are wanting to learn more about the movement, extreme examples like this are also important to talk about because you’re going in eyes wide open.  You’re understanding the levels of dehumanization in our country, how bad it can get if it’s not addressed. I think those are all important things.

 

Herb Geraghty: Yeah. I mean, I also I think and I hope that for the sort of “comfortable pro-choice person”, often I think they’re like many Americans. They don’t like abortion but they think it might be necessary, and they don’t like late-term abortion. And when I look at this issue I hope, at least, that this is a potential olive branch to that sort of mushy middle who [say things like] “I’m personally pro-life and I would never get an abortion but I understand why other people might need it.” And the pictures of these babies, the actual victims, or just a fetus through an ultrasound at 24 weeks--it’s very hard, in my opinion, to deny their humanity unless you are about to profit off of it.  And I just hope that this potentially could be one of those issues that could bring people on board, at least closer to the pro-life side than the sort of just blind trust in the abortion-industrial-complex that [thinks] whatever they’re doing is probably fine, Gosnell was just a one-off extreme case and no one else is like that.  That’s what I hope, at least, when we’re trying to talk about this issue: that it can be sort of a radicalizing moment for pro-choice people who think that abortion is just, sort of, I don’t know, “getting rid of some tissue.”

 

Nick Reynosa: A couple of things to add to that. You know, any way you slice it, it’s pretty politically easy, I think, to achieve this. Because if you look at the numbers, the majority of women independents, Democrats, oppose these late-term procedures. And that’s just procedures in general, not specifically extreme, extreme late-term procedures. And then also, internationally these procedures are like--even when compared to most of Western Europe, where abortions are much, the term of the pregnancies are [restricted at a] much lower date. And so I think--and also, too, the abortion extremism in the Democratic party has cost them a lot of votes from people that would otherwise vote for them, and I think that would be a great olive branch to them.  Say, “hey, we’re reasonable people, we can still generally support abortion rights, but not this extremism.” And so, I agree that for people who are willing to be intellectually honest about it, there could be some progress there. And maybe, if they come to reject the abortion lobbyists, and come to more of an international center like where Europe is, or where most American voters are at in their opinions on this.

 

Herb Geraghty: Yeah. And I guess to me, when I think of that kind of thing with a lot of abortion legislation, there is so much diversity of thought within this country about exactly what they want abortion legislation to look like.  A lot of people want it to be legal, but with some regulation, and that is so not represented at all in the modern Democratic party. And the reason why is pretty obvious: it’s that who’s funding the modern Democratic party is Planned Parenthood, it’s NARAL, it’s Emily’s List. It’s these groups that exist to either provide or promote legal abortion. And so I think to make any sort of these incremental gains to save lives of unborn children we really need a groundswell of support from people all over the political spectrum, people all socio-economic groups, we need everyone on board saying: “hey, even outside of my opinion whether I’m pro-life or pro-choice, this extremism has got to go.” Because otherwise there’s no incentive for politicians to care about it enough to try to change these laws or to enforce the laws that are already in place.  I think that’s where the work of SERNOW really lies: in education about it, making sure that people know about this, and have an opinion on it.  It can’t just be something that no one knows about because it happens behind several layers of hospital doors, and no one talks about it because it’s not a popular topic.

 

Nick Reynosa: I have a couple of things to say about that. Number one is sort of a silver lining in the Democrats winning. I mean obviously from the pro-life point of view there’s some obvious complications in that, but one thing I took away from that was Kamala Harris, of all the 24 people that ran for president, she was by far the one most closely associated with the whole David Daleiden situation and UCSF and all those associated issues. I think it’s completely fair to say that, of all the Democrats who ran, Kamala Harris had the most extreme abortion record of any of them. And I’m not just saying that because she’s now VP-Elect, or because I work for SERNOW I just think that’s objectively true and that thing of--

 

Herb Geraghty: I mean, the thing about Kamala Harris that I think you’re about to say is, not only is she pro-abortion, she is like, anti-pro-lifer. She has targeted us, specifically David.  It’s scary.

 

Nick Reynosa: And that’s why David’s fight, which continues--and it’s important to remember that I don’t, we don’t, work for David directly but we do build on his brave work, and the discussion on banning fetal, unethical fetal experimentation, he’s been the root and branch of that. And any success that we have is because of him and his great work. But I think it’s so symbolic, because the outcome of David‘s case is symbolic, as far as we have Kamala Harris on one side, who persecuted David and supported UCSF and supported Planned Parenthood in their breaking of the law, and did not protect David’s freedom of speech, and journalistic rights and so forth--but we want to see that through.  Sarah now wants to see that through, and see David vindicated, because it would be America saying that Kamala Harris’s behavior was uncalled-for and we aspire to do better. It’s not even about a pro-choice or pro-life thing. It’s about freedom of speech, it’s about journalistic rights, it’s about her integrity as a prosecutor, and fairness, and all of those issues. And now that Kamala Harris is center stage, that can be a great talking point for our cause, and something to rally around David as we expose Kamala Harris’s extremism. And that’s something I look forward to doing in the future.

 

Herb Geraghty: So I guess my only question left, then, is how can the listeners get involved? 

What can the Rehumanize fans and colleagues do to work on this issue? 

 

Nick Reynosa: Well, I think there are a couple of things.  On a local level, there are over 170 fetal [experimentation] programs, so you can go on the NIH site and look at funding to particular universities. Find out if your local university is involved with any kind of fetal experimentation.  You know, one of the hardest things about this job is just how difficult it is to have a clear understanding of it.  A lot of what I learned about this, I learned from Robert Burr who’s just been tireless in his efforts, and he just piecemealed together this information. And not everyone has the time that Robert or I have to do that, and I just want to make sure that people have more transparency, so looking into local universities would be a great start. And if they’re interested in helping us more generally, we’ve been working on different legislation.  There is HR 573, which was the Integrity in Research Act, which was looking to abolish unethical fetal experimentation throughout the US. And then there was also, like you were saying, HR 962 which was the add on to the Born Alive Infant Protection Survivor’s Act. And if they want to help us more directly, in December on December 19th, SERNOW will be back in San Francisco at Zuckerberg protesting, and will also be at the Walk for For Life in San Francisco.  I believe it’s January 23rd.  Those are all ways they can come out and help us.  If someone has more time because of COVID and they’re interested in an internship, they could go to survivors.la and apply and they could get connected.  We have a lot of people that come for a couple months out to the Bay Area and help whenever, and that’s actually currently on hold because we’re getting another group of young people, but when that starts again it will be up in San Francisco. There will probably be a house, and there will be free room and board and such for the interns.  Definitely contact Jeff at survivors.la for that. I really appreciate your time, Herb, and all of the great work that Rehumanize does. Especially you guys are sort of unorthodox, like kind of a more holistic, kind of like left-wing kind of group so that’s…

 

Herb Geraghty:  Ughh I hate when people say we’re left-wing.  I’m conservative.

 

Nick Reynosa: No, I’m sorry, Herb but you know what I mean.

 

Herb Geraghty: No, I understand.  We’re a little different.  The fact that we have left-wingers on staff and sort of our orbit, makes us different enough.

 

Nick Reynosa: Yeah, so that’s important to have that voice. And I appreciate your friendship and all of the work you do, and I hope to come back sometime later and give you lots of great updates about what we’re doing.

 

Herb Geraghty: Absolutely.  Last thing, what is the website and social media so we can follow the work of SERNOW?

 

Nick Reynosa: So there’s survivors.la which is like the parent organization and then there’s also SERNOW which is sernow.org and then on social media it’s The Society For Ethical Research on Facebook and then on Instagram and Twitter it’s @s.e.r.org

 

Herb Geraghty: Well, sounds great. Thank you so much for coming on Nick. I hope you have a great night.

 

Nick Reynosa: Thank you. Appreciate it. Take care.

 

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Maria Oswalt: Thanks for tuning in to the Rehumanize Podcast.  To learn more, check out our website at rehumanizeintl.org or follow us on social media @rehumanizeintl