Trump administration sharply curtails fetal-tissue research

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the federal government would sharply curtail federal spending on medical research that uses tissue from aborted fetuses, mainly by ending such research within the National Institutes of Health. The move fulfills a top goal of anti-abortion groups that have lobbied hard for it, but scientists say the tissue is crucial for studies that benefit millions of patients.

The Department of Health and Human Services said it would immediately end a $2-million-ayear contract with the University of California, San Francisco, for research involving fetal tissue from elective abortions; the contract started in 2013. The department also said that based on a review it began last fall, it would discontinue all research within the National Institutes of Health involving fetal tissue from elective abortions.

“Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” the department said in a statement. It added that about 200 research projects involving fetal tissue and conducted at universities with NIH grants would be allowed to continue, but that a new ethics advisory board would review each application for grant renewal and recommend whether to continue the funding.

Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor specializing in public-health law at Georgetown University, said the new restrictions would “devastate” crucial medical research.

“It will affect everything from cures for cancer and HIV through to Parkinson’s and dementia,” Gostin said. “The ban on fetal tissue research is akin to a ban on hope for millions of Americans suffering from life threatening and debilitating diseases. It will also severely impact the National Institutes of Health, universities, and other researchers, who will lose key funding for their laboratories and their vital work.”

But anti-abortion groups were quick to applaud the decision.

“Most Americans do not want their tax dollars creating a marketplace for aborted baby body parts which are then implanted into mice and used for experimentation,” said Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life. “This type of research involves the gross violation of basic human rights and certainly the government has no business funding it.”

In December, the NIH said it would spend $20 million over the next two years on research seeking alternatives to fetal tissue.

As of last year, the NIH spent about $100 million of its $37 billion annual budget on research projects involving fetal tissue. The tissue is used to test drugs, develop vaccines, and study cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, birth defects, blindness, and other disorders. For much of that work, scientists say there is no substitute for fetal tissue.