NIH Ends Fetal Tissue Research From Elective Abortions
Does ending fetal tissue research modernize science or does it dangerously reject evidence-based medical progress?
Above: The National Institutes of Health headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 10, 2025. Image credit: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
The Spin
Pro-government narrative
Ending taxpayer funding for fetal tissue research from elective abortions is a necessary step toward modernizing biomedical science. With only 77 HFT projects funded in the 2024 fiscal year and revolutionary alternatives, such as organoids and tissue chips, now available, directing limited funding toward cutting-edge technologies represents a better investment of NIH resources.
Government-critical narrative
Fetal tissue research has been indispensable to biomedical progress since the 1930s, contributing to the development of countless crucial vaccines, including polio, rubella, measles, rabies and COVID, among others. Banning the use of this critical resource, therefore, would be a catastrophic outcome for medicine and a dangerous rejection of evidence-based science.
