An advisory board that reviews applications for federal funding for projects that use fetal tissue from aborted babies has been disbanded.
According to The Christian Post, the National Institutes of Health announced recently that the independent board would be dissolved. The board was initially established by former President Donald Trump.
Under the Trump administration, the independent ethics board reviewed applications for NIH grants.
“HHS is reversing its 2019 decision that all research applications for NIH grants and contracts proposing the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions will be reviewed by an Ethics Advisory Board,” a statement from the group said.
The notice adds, “NIH reminds the community of expectations to obtain informed consent from the donor for any NIH-funded research using human fetal tissue … and of continued obligations to conduct such research only in accord with any applicable federal, state, or local laws and regulations, including prohibitions on the payment of valuable consideration for such tissue.”
In response, the National Right to Life Committee called the change a “sickening decision by the Biden administration.”
“Tiny human babies are aborted by abortionists and then exploited to be farmed for their organs and tissue for use in experiments,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement. “The Biden administration and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra have dismantled the process of making researchers meet any ethical standards when it comes to harvesting the body parts of aborted children for research.”
In a statement, Reps. Suzan DelBene, Mark Pocn and Jan Schakowsky said they “applauded” the change in policy to reverse “the Trump administration’s arbitrary barriers to both extramural and intramural researchers on the use of fetal tissue in scientific research.”
Previously, the ethics board had reviewed 14 research proposals that would have used fetal tissue. The ethics board only approved one of the 14 for federal funding.
FRC: Biden admin forces taxpayers to fund the trafficking of aborted baby body parts
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced a policy to resume taxpayer funding for research using fetal tissue from aborted babies. This move overturns a historic policy put in place under President Donald Trump that halted all internal NIH research using aborted fetal tissue, and severely restricted outside fetal tissue research funded by taxpayers. This announcement goes so far as to disband a nonpartisan ethics advisory board that was tasked with reviewing proposals for research using fetal tissue from aborted babies.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said:
“As expected, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, a fanatical advocate for abortion, announced the Biden administration will now force American taxpayers to pay for barbaric experiments using the body parts of aborted babies. Instead of using ethical and effective alternatives, Biden is choosing to reinstate a policy that traffics in the grizzly remains of what would have been our next generation.
“The fact is that the remains of aborted babies have not been used to create the cure of a single disease. It’s clear that the NIH under President Biden means to do the opposite of ‘follow the science.’
“The Biden administration is making it once again clear that it places no value on the inherent dignity of human life. Their actions deny the truth that every human life, born and unborn, possesses inherent dignity and deserves to be treated with respect,” concluded Perkins.
Connor Semelsberger, Director of Federal Affairs for Life and Human Dignity at Family Research Council, added:
“Using body parts from aborted babies to conduct research is a barbaric practice that should be unthinkable. Sadly, President Biden is instead promoting it. Proponents of aborted fetal tissue research willingly compromise ethics in the name of ‘science.’ However, the ends do not always justify the means.”
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
There should be a natural affection a woman has for her child (whether born or still in the womb). There should be a natural desire in a doctor to protect all life. There should be a natural want for a Government to protect their most venerable. Why are these things absent in our abortion-crazed society?
Would it surprise you to know that the Bible predicted our “shrugging of shoulders” attitude toward the murder of children?
In 2 Timothy 3, the apostle Paul provides a list of what the character of mankind will be like in the last days. Among this eye-opening list, we are told people of our generation would be “lovers of their own selves” and have a “loss of natural affection.”
Cissie Graham Lynch, daughter of Franklin Graham, in a recent article, explained that abortion today is identical to previous cults that practiced child sacrifice; only now, we are sacrificing to the “god of self”:
In the Old Testament, some Israelites were won over to the cult of the pagan god Molech, which required child sacrifice (see Jeremiah 32:35). It turns my stomach to think of turning one’s child over to be burned in an offering to an idol! Yet in a sense, that’s what abortion is all about. Only now, instead of a metal statue with the head of a bull and the body of a man, the idol has become the individual.
Think about it. Very few abortions happen because the life or health of the mother is actually at risk. Rather, women talk about “my life,” “my dreams,” “my choice.” They sacrifice their own babies to the idol of self! The Bible says, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves …” (2 Timothy 3:1-2).
