Earlier this month, President Joe Biden and his Health and Human Services Secretary, Xavier Becerra, overturned the ban on using taxpayer funding for research using body parts from aborted babies. During his administration, President Donald Trump established a bioethics advisory board to review funding requests. While in service, the NIH Human and Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board rejected funding for 13 of 14 research projects that had planned to use aborted baby body parts.
The advisory board became a necessity when it was discovered experimentation contracted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the University of California San Francisco to create “humanized mice” using aborted baby parts. This discovery also shed light on the abhorrent illegal activity of selling those body parts.
Now that the bioethics advisory board has been dismantled, federal tax dollars will once again fund research on aborted babies. Pro-life groups criticized this action and challenge that it is unnecessary.
Dr. Tara Sander Lee, senior fellow and director of life sciences at Charlotte Lozier Institute, commented:
“The HHS decision to resume experiments using the body parts of aborted children defies both the best ethics and most promising science. Exploiting the bodies of these young human beings is unnecessary and grotesque. Fetal tissue was not, and has never been, used for polio or any other vaccine, nor to produce or manufacture any pharmaceutical. There are superior and ethical alternatives available such as adult stem cell models being used by countless scientists worldwide to develop and produce advanced medicines treating patients now, without exploitation of any innocent life. All scientists should reject the administration’s attempts to prey on fears related to the pandemic to advance the practice of harvesting fetal tissue.”
Also this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will not enforce the requirement that abortion pills be administered in person, enabling women to obtain the pills without seeing a doctor. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-person requirement was suspended because it presented an “obstacle” to women seeking an abortion.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List organization, accuses pro-abortion activists of exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic. She said, “this decision prioritizes abortion industry profits over the health and safety of women and puts the abortion extremism of the Bidden-Harris administration on full display. This decision is pure politics … a flagrant and dangerous disregard for the health and safety of American women and girls.” Not to mention, I might add, for the life of the unborn child!
As the federal government reinstates its assault on life, several states have passed legislation to protect women and the lives of the pre-born. While pro-life legislation is a start, we must continue to hold our elected officials accountable for their votes against it. We must also work to establish and maintain support systems for women and girls in our communities facing unplanned pregnancies!