Lenten campaign 2026
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On January 22, 2026, the eve of the March for Life, the United States’ National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that “NIH funds will not be permitted for research using HFT [human fetal tissue] from elective abortions,” effective immediately. This policy expands restrictions first imposed during President Donald Trump’s first term but later reversed under the Biden administration. The decision has been welcomed by pro-life groups.
The official announcement cites as the main reason for this policy the fact that “NIH supported research using human fetal tissue has been in sharp decline since 2019, with only 77 projects supported in Fiscal Year 2024.” Consequently, the organization “is prioritizing limited resources towards biomedical research models with more relevance to today’s rapidly evolving research ecosystem.”
However, in a press release, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya also acknowledged that it reflects “the values of the American people,” as well as “advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease.”
Impact on research
Research utilizing fetal tissue from elective abortions has been funded by the government “for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations,” CNN reports. Now that the funding is being cut off, scientists must either change their method, seek funding from other sources, or cancel their projects.
Nature magazine notes that the NIH “will continue to fund research on fetal tissue from miscarriages and stillbirths.” There is an important distinction here, because such tissue is not derived from the purposeful killing of a human life in the womb, but rather from accidental or natural death.
The policy does not affect the use of human embryonic stem cell lines, which result from “culturing fetal cells” obtained from a dead fetus “in such a way that they continue growing and multiplying in laboratory dishes.” However, the NIH press release observes that the organization “will soon seek public comment on the robustness of emerging biotechnologies to reduce or potentially replace reliance on human embryonic stem cells.”
Practical and ethical concerns
The science journal adds that scientists prefer tissue from elective abortions. This is apparently because it can be collected under more controlled conditions and immediately after death, which may not be the case with miscarriages or stillbirths. Also, unborn children who die a “natural” death possibly suffer genetic abnormalities. An elective abortion can provide tissue from a healthy individual (when he or she is not aborted due to having health problems).
However, the NIH press release states that there are a growing number of other options: “advances in organoids, tissue chips, computational biology, and other cutting-edge platforms have created robust alternatives that can drive discovery while reducing ethical concerns.”
Critics claim that the alternatives are not yet good enough to substitute the tissue collected from elective abortions. While there may be truth to this from a practical, scientific perspective, it reflects a philosophy that denies the human dignity of unborn babies from the moment of conception, and holds that the ends (scientific advancement that may save lives) justify the means (material cooperation, at the least, in the killing of an innocent human life).
