Earlier today, on Wednesday, June 5, 2019, the United States Department of Health and Human Services announced that would not be signing another contract with the University of California, San Francisco to conduct research using fetal tissue.
The National Institutes of Health, which is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, had been partnered with the West Coast-based university to conduct research with fetal tissue taken from aborted human fetuses for the past 30 years.
Sam Hawgood, the Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, shared via an official press release that the fetal tissue research conducted at the university could have soon led to a cure for the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, one of the most serious contagious, permanent diseases currently plaguing mankind. Further, the statement from Hawgood indicated that the university as a whole was in strong opposition to the decision made by the Trump administration earlier today.
Further, the Health and Human Services Department made clear that it would be implementing restrictions in the future that would cut down on the ability of researchers to use tissues from aborted human fetuses stemming from elective abortions, which are those in which the then-pregnant mothers-to-be would not likely run in to any complications related to giving birth and the fetuses were not thought to be born with developmental issues or other defects.
Human fetal tissue has been used for nearly 90 years for developing vaccines. In recent years, researchers have used human fetal tissues to make big-time advances in researching stem cells’ potential to yield effective treatments for things like Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that currently does not have any known cures.
Currently, more than 500,000 people’s lives are saved every year through the administration of polio vaccines stemming from human fetuses’ kidney cells.
Although tissues from elective abortions will be not as easy for researchers to get their hands on in the future across the United States, they’ll still be able to use fetal tissues from abortions in which physicians felt that the mother would experience serious complications if she were to give birth or that the child-to-be would be born with birth defects.
The Trump administration believes that fetal tissue made possible as a result of elective abortions should not be used by humans. Rather, the fetuses should appropriately, properly be laid to rest, suggesting that the White House views human fetuses as humans.
