FREEZING FETUSES
hope that someday a way
Never Performed Abortions, might be found to revive
Doctor Says in Interview
Associated Press them and implant them in
SAU PALO-In an exclu-recipient mothers.'
sive interview with the British In all, Dr. Fletcher froze
science magazine Nature, Dr. 3,618 fetuses, all of which
Evelyn Fletcher admitted that are being stored in secret lo-she had always planned to de-cations around the United velop transoption as a viable States. U.S. officials, con-alternative to abortion. In her tacted by Nature, could find years at Bayside University nothing illegal with the unor-Medical Center, she said, she thodox method of storage. preserved every fetus she re-When asked, Dr. Fletcher
moved from women undergo-admitted that 'probably very
ing abortions. few' of the fetuses could be
'I could have disposed of expected to survive the
them in any number of ways,' freezing and thawing pro-she said from her clinic in Bra-cess. 'But even one life zil. 'I decided to have them saved,' she said, 'would
cryogenically preserved in the make my effort worth-while.'
TRANSOPTION RING
BROKEN BY FBI
'Massive' Operation family-planning clinics in Mal-Nets Eight Young ibu, Westwood, and Irvine. Surgeons, Gold 'They offered large sums of
cash to unwed mothers who
Exclusive to the Times came in for abortions,' Dela-LOS ANGELES-Eight cort said. 'Then they tran-young Southland surgeons sopted the fetuses into other were arrested Friday by the women who paid astronomical
FBI and local police in a fees for the service.'
sweep that netted illegal tran-Also seized in the coordi-soption equipment, nearly a nated raids were containers of million dollars in cash and cryogenic liquid that led Dela-gold, and information on cort to speculate that some of thousands of transoptions the fetuses were being frozen
performed over the last five for future use.
years throughout California, 'When there's an under-Arizona, and Nevada. ground demand for something The eight surgeons, de-as there is for transoption,'
scribed by FBI Special Agent Delacort stated, 'there's a tre-Richard Delacort as 'money-mendous incentive for doctors hungry kids armed with la-to violate their ethics and pro-sers,' operated out of three vide it.' Dear Editor:
Your editorial about the Transoption Eight could
not have been more short-sighted and uninformed
['Doctors Should Have Stuck to Abortions,' July
18]. Simply because abortion is legal and transop-tion is not places no obligation on your paper to support the persecution of these dedicated medical
pioneers. There was a time when 'the majority of
