HHS Ethics Board Announced Decisions on Fetal Tissue Research Proposals

Photo credit: Gerardo Villalobos / Flickr

An independent Ethics Advisory Board working on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its decisions on August 18 regarding 14 research proposals involving the use of aborted fetal tissue.

After it was revealed last June that the HHS had contracts with Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR) and the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) to perform research on aborted fetal tissue, all ongoing contracts were canceled, and an independent board was selected to review proposals from these organizations which sought funding.

After a long process, the board came to the conclusion that only one proposal should be approved for funding. This particular project would only involve the use of existing fetal tissue (therefore not requiring any new tissue harvesting from unborn children) and would use that tissue to try to develop alternatives to fetal tissue in medical research.

The FDA terminated a similar contract with ABR in 2018. ABR is known to provide payments to Planned Parenthood so the abortion giant could harvest organs to be used in ABR's ethically-devoid research.

The ethics board’s recommendations will be sent to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Congress for final approval.

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