The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) barred the use of human fetal tissue derived from elective abortions from being used in taxpayer-funded research.
“HHS is ending the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in agency-funded research and replacing it with gold-standard science,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “The science supports this shift, the ethics demand it, and we will apply this standard consistently across the Department.”
HHS said in its announcement, which was released the same day as the 53rd annual March for Life, that its new policy aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities to “uphold the sanctity of human life and modernize biomedical science.” The move applies consistently to grants, contracts, and programs administered across the department.
According to HHS, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which distributes most HHS medical research funding, is applying the policy to its Intramural Research Program and all NIH-supported extramural research, including grants, cooperative agreements, other transaction awards, and research and development contracts. The action takes precedent over previous NIH guidance and “reflects a shift toward validated research models better suited to today’s rapidly evolving scientific landscape, which includes advances in organoids, tissue chips, computational biology, and other cutting-edge platforms,” the agency said.
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“NIH is pushing American biomedical science into the 21st century,” NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “This decision is about advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease. Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people.”
HHS had 77 projects using human fetal tissue that were funded by NIH during the fiscal year of 2024, the Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan first reported. NIH told the outlet that the number represents a steady decline since 2019.
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During President Donald Trump’s first term in 2019, he banned new funding for fetal tissue research and ended all in-house NIH research using the body parts of aborted babies.
When the rabidly pro-abortion Biden administration took over in 2021, the NIH, under the authority of the HHS, announced its reversal of the Trump administration’s decision to end taxpayer funding for experimental research that uses fetal tissue derived from aborted babies.
After President Trump was reelected for his second term, now-HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged at his Senate confirmation hearings to revive the ban.
The 2026 ban goes further than President Trump’s action in his first term, according to the Daily Wire report.
“Under the first Trump administration, the president banned intramural use of aborted fetal tissue, meaning research conducted within United States government facilities,” Olohan wrote. “This time, Trump’s NIH is going further, stating that it will not fund any research involving tissue from aborted babies.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
