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Jan 23, 2026 / 18:34 pm (CNA).
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Thursday that it will stop funding research that uses fetal tissue of aborted babies.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, National Institutes of Health (NIH) director, said in a Jan. 22 statement that the agency has “reexamined its approach related to the use of human fetal tissue in federally funded research.”
“This decision is about advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease,” Bhattacharya added. “Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited ethical and scientific reasons for the change.
“HHS is ending the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in agency-funded research and replacing it with gold-standard science,” Kennedy said in a Jan. 23 statement. “The science supports this shift, the ethics demand it, and we will apply this standard consistently across the department.”
The agency also will look to “potentially replace reliance on human embryonic stem cells,” according to Bhattacharya.
Embryonic stem cell lines are lab-grown cell lines used in research that come from aborted human fetal tissue.
Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a neuroscientist and senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, called the move “a very welcome development.”
“Biomedical research should not be built on the backs of directly-aborted human fetuses or embryos, and taking their bodily tissues for research necessarily involves a failure to obtain valid informed consent, a key ethical principle guiding all modern bioresearch,” Pacholczyk told EWTN News.
Pacholczyk welcomed the NIH “taking steps to rein in past abuses involving aborted fetal tissue and NIH funding.”
“Several previous U.S. administrations dropped the ethical ball when it came to allowing human fetal tissues from elective abortions to be used in NIH-funded scientific investigations,” he said. “In effect, they set up a situation where fetal-tissue research faced very few practical barriers or limitations.”
Funding control is “a critical mechanism to avoid unethical research practices,” Pacholczyk noted.
“The granting of funding, especially federal funding, is one of the highest forms of approbation and blessing a researcher can obtain in terms of his or her particular line of work,” he said. “Disbursement of funding needs to be directly linked to our vision of good, ethical science.”
“The rest of the world’s scientific community looks to the U.S., and to NIH-funded research in particular, as a kind of model and example when it comes to real excellence in science,” Pacholczyk continued. “Such excellence connotes much more than merely developing scientific breakthroughs while ignoring the means used to make those discoveries; it necessarily implies conscientious attention to ethics.”
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Thank God!
When it comes to pro-life issues, this administration has not been perfect.
Unless of course you’re comparing them to the ravening death cult that is the Democratic Party.
This development is huge.
I am hopeful.
brineyman, you write: “the ravening death cult that is the Democratic party”.
And we recall that it was a bishop of the Catholic Church- a Cardinal and close ally of Pope Leo – one named Cupich who participated in their coven.
It’s impossible to be perfect whether you’re Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan ,Abraham Lincoln or Barrack Obama; but the attitudes matter! Who’s the only president who invited nuns to the White House and released elderly citizens arrested outside an abortion clinic? A :Trump
I just woke up, but this news is a great start to a subzero morning
Lest we forget, fetal cells from two elective abortions in 1973 and 1985 were used to come up with the mRNA shot.
You keep warm and be safe, knowall.
🙂❄️❄️
I’m hopeful, too.
🙏
And some Catholics will still vote Democrat instead of Republican. See the great speech of JD Vance at the March for Life. Vice President JD Vance announced on Friday that the Trump administration has executed a “historic expansion” of the Mexico City Policy to block the promotion of abortion abroad.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/01/23/jd-vance-announces-historic-expansion-of-mexico-city-policy-to-halt-abortion-promotion-abroad/
Secular society is fickle and bends with the wind, but we must remain firmly grounded and immovable- a lighthouse in the storm.
It is important to note, in addition to the fact that all legislation should serve to secure and protect our inherent unalienable Right to Life, the securing and protection upon which securing and protecting our inherent Right to Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness depends, it is never necessary or proper, to use Embryonic stem cells that come from aborted babies, for research, as it is never necessary or proper to destroy innocent human life to save human life.
“HHS is ending the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in agency-funded research and replacing it with gold-standard science,” Kennedy said in a Jan. 23 statement. “The science supports this shift, the ethics demand it, and we will apply this standard consistently across the department.”
“https://lozierinstitute.org/history-of-fetal-tissue-research-and-transplants/
It would have been helpful if this article had gone further in depth to record when Fetal tissue research became legal. Several years ago there was outcry when there were requests to start fetal tissue research while it had always been illegal to use tax dollars to do so. What ever happened to that. Embryonic tissue and stem cell research is completely unethical and down right Frankensteinish!
Where is respect for the dignity of those who were denied life?