Trump Administration Cancels One Taxpayer-Funded Medical Research Contract That Uses Aborted Babies, But Others Still Remain

Calvin Freiburger : Sep 26, 2018
LifeSiteNews.com

"We expect far better of our federal agencies—especially under the leadership of a courageous pro-life president—entrusted with the health of American citizens. It is completely unacceptable to discover that the FDA is using federal tax dollars and fomenting demand for human body parts taken from babies who are aborted." -Excerpt from Letter by Pro-Life Groups Sent to HHS Secretary Alex Azar

[LifeSiteNews.com] The Trump administration has canceled a $15,900 contract for medical research using aborted babies' remains, but pro-lifers warn that far more funding—nearly $100 million—for similar experiments remains in place. (Photo: Creative Commons-Pixabay)

Last month, a notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) surfaced detailing a contract to the fetal tissue procurement firm Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR) to acquire "Tissue for Humanized Mice." The tissue was meant to give mice a "humanized" immune system for the purpose of drug testing.

Between the use of tissue from aborted babies and ABR's past work with Planned Parenthood in the abortion giant's 2015 scandal over selling aborted baby parts, 48 pro-life leaders representing LifeSiteNews, the Center for Medical Progress, Susan B. Anthony List, Priests for Life, Operation Rescue, and other groups sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar on September 11 demanding the contract's cancellation.

"We expect far better of our federal agencies—especially under the leadership of a courageous pro-life president—entrusted with the health of American citizens," the pro-life letter reads. "It is completely unacceptable to discover that the FDA is using federal tax dollars and fomenting demand for human body parts taken from babies who are aborted."

85 members of the House of Representatives also sent a letter about the contract to FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb on September 17, declaring, "unborn children are not commodities to be bought and sold" and the "practice of conducting research using the body parts of children whose lives have been violently ended by abortion is abhorrent."

On Monday evening, HHS released a statement announcing it has terminated ABR's contract because the department "was not sufficiently assured that the contract included the appropriate protections applicable to fetal tissue research or met all other procurement requirements."

The statement also announced an "audit of all acquisitions involving human fetal tissue to ensure conformity with procurement and human fetal tissue research laws and regulations" and a "comprehensive review of all research involving fetal tissue to ensure consistency with statutes and regulations governing such research, and to ensure the adequacy of procedures and oversight," and that it will continue researching ethical alternatives to using fetal tissue... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here.

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