Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement that the Trump administration has “once again done the right thing in restoring a culture of life to our government.” The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect lawmakers opposed to abortion, said in a statement that taxpayer funding ought to go to promoting alternatives to using fetal tissue in medical research.
“Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” HHS
The Trump administration said Wednesday that it is ending medical research by government scientists that uses human fetal tissue,.
A senior administration official said it was the president’s call. The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity. Doug Melton, co-director of Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. said “Today, fetal tissue is still making an impact, with clinical trials underway using cells from fetal tissue to treat conditions including Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and spinal cord injury,” said
The immediate effect was to stop research at the University of California, San Francisco, that had been funded for 30 years by the NIH. where investigators were funded to used fetal tissue to create a human-like immune system in mice. This project is central to many of the current ideas about diseases like HIV, type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s and even cancer.
That idea got strong support from Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri. the Republican senator who oversees NIH funding. Senator Blunt said, “Today’s action is a significant pro-life victory.”