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US stops federal funding for research using aborted baby parts

Adobe Stock/Photographee.eu

The US Department of Health and Social Services (HHS) has ended taxpayer funded federal research using the remains of aborted foetuses.

HHS recognised “the dignity of human life” as a “top priority” in determining what counts as ethical research. “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.”

However, privately funded research using parts of aborted babies is still able to continue.

Any research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that desires to use new foetal remains for its research will no longer be conducted under this policy change.

As for future aborted-tissue research that applies for federal funding but takes place outside NIH, “an ethics advisory board will be convened to review the research proposal and recommend whether, in light of the ethical considerations, NIH should fund the research project—pursuant to a law passed by Congress.”

HHS also said that it was committed to funding ethical alternatives which does not involve the use of foetal remains.

After an abortion, it is possible to harvest the dead foetal remains for use in medical research.

Planned Parenthood were embroiled in a scandal in 2015 after they were discovered to negotiating the trading of baby body parts for research. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) also openly admitted to being involved in harvesting of baby parts for research following an abortion.

However, biochemistry expert Dr. Tara Sander Lee testified before the US Congress last December that fetal tissue research is medically unnecessary.

She explained that “after over 100 years of research, no therapies have been discovered or developed that require aborted fetal tissue,” and that researchers have access to a wealth of ethical sources for human tissue, including cells (which can be examined using things like a range of microcentrifuge tubes) that can be given the coveted quality of pluripotency, or the ability to become other types of tissue. So fetal tissue is not needed (as Dr . Tara Sander Lee argues anyway). There are other ways that things can be discovered and developed. It doesn’t matter how long it takes.

Dear reader,

You may be surprised to learn that our 24-week abortion time limit is out of line with the majority of European Union countries, where the most common time limit for abortion on demand or on broad social grounds is 12 weeks gestation.

The latest guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine enables doctors to intervene to save premature babies from 22 weeks. The latest research indicates that a significant number of babies born at 22 weeks gestation can survive outside the womb, and this number increases with proactive perinatal care.

This leaves a real contradiction in British law. In one room of a hospital, doctors could be working to save a baby born alive at 23 weeks whilst, in another room of that same hospital, a doctor could perform an abortion that would end the life of a baby at the same age.

The majority of the British population support reducing the time limit. Polling has shown that 70% of British women favour a reduction in the time limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or below.

Please click the button below to sign the petition to the Prime Minister, asking him to do everything in his power to reduce the abortion time limit.