The Trump administration has cancelled the $2 million in funding for research at the University of California San Francisco using the remains of aborted fetuses.
On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will discontinue research involving the “use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions.”
“HHS has been extending the UCSF contract by means of 90-day extensions while conducting its audit and review,” said the department in a statement. “The current extension expires on June 5, 2019, and there will be no further extensions.”
The statement went on to say that “promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration. The audit and review helped inform the policy process that led to the administration’s decision to let the contract with UCSF expire and to discontinue intramural research – research conducted within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – involving the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortion. Intramural research that requires new acquisition of fetal tissue from elective abortions will not be conducted.”
In December, the NIH announced a $20 million funding opportunity for research to develop, demonstrate, and validate alternative models that will not rely on human fetal tissue from elective abortions.
CNS News reports that UCSF research, titled “Humanized Mouse Models for HIV Therapeutics Development,” used aborted fetal tissue at 18 to 24 weeks’ gestation.
“The fact is aborted fetal tissue hasn’t been used to create the cure of a single disease. However, tax dollars have been contributing to an industry that fosters the trafficking of body parts from aborted babies. There is absolutely no reason to use these grisly remains when ethical and effective alternatives exist including human umbilical cord blood stem cells and adult peripheral blood stem cells,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statment following the announcement.
