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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration said Wednesday that the federal government would heavily limit federal spending on medical research using aborted fetal tissue. The movement serves a primary purpose of anti-abortion groups that have been lobbying, but scientists say the tissue is crucial for studies that benefit millions of patients.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would immediately terminate a $ 2 million contract a year with the University of California at San Francisco for research on fetal tissue derived from 39, voluntary abortions; the contract began in 2013. The department also said that, according to a review conducted last fall, it would disrupt any research conducted within the National Institutes of Health on fetal tissue from voluntary abortions.
"Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the top priorities of President Trump's administration," the department said in a statement. He added that about 200 research projects involving fetal tissue and conducted in universities with N.I.H. Grants would be allowed to continue, but a new ethics advisory committee would review each grant renewal application and recommend whether to maintain the funding.
Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of public health law at Georgetown University, said the new restrictions would "devastate" crucial medical research.
"This will affect everything from cancer treatments and H.I.V. Parkinson's and dementia, "said Gostin. "The ban on fetal tissue research appears to ban hope for millions of Americans suffering from life threatening and debilitating diseases. It will also have serious implications for national health institutes, universities and other researchers, who will lose essential funding for their labs and vital work. "
But anti-abortion groups quickly applauded the decision.
"Most Americans do not want their taxes to create a market for parts of the body of aborted babies that are then implanted into mice and used for experimental purposes," said Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life. "This type of research involves a flagrant violation of basic human rights and the government certainly has no business funding it."
The representative of Louisiana, Republican in the House of Representatives, Steve Scalise, said, "The government has no activity that subsidizes researchers who traffic the body parts of aborted babies.
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