(Oregon Right to Life) — The Trump administration’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) pledged last week it would not renew over a dozen Biden administration-era federal grants funding research using aborted fetal tissue.
The federal agency made the commitment in an email to Breitbart News on September 10, stating that 17 federal grants for research projects involving human fetal tissue – which together received nearly $22 million in federal dollars in fiscal year 2024 – would not be renewed.
“NIH takes this issue very seriously and remains committed to the highest ethical standards in research,” the agency said in an email to the outlet. “The referenced grants, initiated under the Biden administration, will not be renewed.”
“NIH is guided by a commitment to valuing human life and ensuring that federally funded research is conducted responsibly and transparently,” NIH added. “We are actively reviewing these matters and will take all necessary steps to ensure our policies reflect that commitment.”
The agency’s statement came after Breitbart published an article on an investigation by the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project (WCW), which reported that the projects – given the go-ahead by the Biden administration – were still being actively funded.
Carol Tobias, President of National Right to Life, congratulated the NIH for its commitment not to renew the grants.
“This is a long‐overdue step in the right direction,” Tobias said in a September 12 statement. “Every human being, born or unborn, has inherent dignity, and the use of aborted fetal tissue in research raises profound ethical issues. We applaud NIH for choosing not to renew these grants and for making a public affirmation that federal funding should reflect respect for human life.”
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A summary of fetal research published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1994 described fetal tissue research as involving “cells from dead fetuses that are harvested for the purpose of establishing cell lines or for use as transplantation material and other purposes.” The resource noted that “There are two sources of such fetal tissue—elective (or induced) abortions and spontaneous (or natural) abortions.”
President Donald Trump prohibited the funding of fetal tissue research during his first presidential term, but the Biden administration reversed the policy, National Right to Life noted.
Research using fetal tissue has sparked strenuous national debate, generating strong opposition among pro-life advocates and triggering undercover investigations into Planned Parenthood for allegedly profiting from the sale of aborted baby body parts.
Oregon Right to Life (ORTL) opposes experimentation on human beings where informed consent is impossible – such consent is, by definition, impossible in the case of abortion.
“Experimentation on human beings, born or preborn, must be with full and informed consent unless consent is impossible due to age or condition of the person involved,” ORTL’s position statement on fetal experimentation reads. “When informed consent is not possible, experimentation is acceptable only if it is for the intended benefit of the patient and the amount of pain and risk have been considered. All other human experimentation is unequivocally condemned including the gathering of scientific data by the experimentation on a human being scheduled for death or in the process of being killed.”
READ: Oregon Right to Life’s Position Statements
The commitment by the NIH not to renew the nearly $22 million grants comes as the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to cut abortion-related funding.
As Oregon Right to Life previously reported, a federal appeals court on Thursday lifted an earlier injunction against the Trump administration’s defunding of Planned Parenthood, freeing the government to cut federal dollars to the abortion corporation through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress in July.
The defunding is expected to lead to the closure of almost 200 abortion facilities nationwide – most of them closing in states where abortion is presently legal.
Trump administration officials are also actively pursuing other major pro-life priorities.
Earlier this month, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. affirmed that the FDA review of the abortion drug mifepristone is “progressing apace.” The review follows a blockbuster new study calculated a far higher adverse reaction rate associated with mifepristone than previously reported.
