but if that was purpose , the discovery that you could , in spite of all laws to the contrary , keep those little aborted things alive in a secret laboratory in the middle of a giant private hospital , slicing them up at will , for the benefit of a parkinson 's disease patient who had already clocked in sixty good years before he started to die of the illness which the fetal tissue transplant could cure , well , she 'd take the knife to the gunshot wound fresh up from emergency any day .