(LifeSiteNews) — Republican members of the U.S. Senate introduced a bill to end federal taxpayer support for research involving human fetal tissue obtained from abortions and to close loopholes in the law that have allowed the trafficking of the body parts of aborted children to continue.
Senate bill S.3713, titled the “Protecting Life and Integrity in Research Act,” would “prohibit the Federal Government from conducting, funding, approving, or otherwise supporting any research involving human fetal tissue that is obtained pursuant to an induced abortion, and to prohibit the solicitation or knowing acquisition, receipt, or acceptance of a donation of such tissue.”
“The harvesting and trafficking of the body parts of unborn babies killed through abortion is heinous and unethical,” said Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, the bill’s chief sponsor.
“Taxpayer dollars for medical research should be spent on research that will deliver results for enhancing quality of life, instead of devaluing life for the sake of research,” Hyde-Smith explained. “This legislation would stop the Biden administration’s gross abuse of taxpayer funds.”
Hyde-Smith cited the “ongoing federal investigation into the University of Pittsburgh harvesting of tissue from aborted children for research; the Biden administration’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) move in 2021 to eliminate Trump-era NIH restrictions and ethics advisory board involving human fetal tissue from abortions; and NIH’s plan to spend another $61 million on human fetal tissue research in 2024.”
The restrictions are necessary to prevent the type of horrifying experiments with aborted baby body parts that have been conducted in laboratories at the University of Pittsburgh.
Gruesome aborted baby body part research
In December 2020, LifeSiteNews reported that medical researchers at the university were grafting scalps from aborted babies onto rodents.
After publishing an article in the National Catholic Register about the many ways that aborted children are being used for scientific research at major universities and hospitals in the United States, author Stacy A. Trasancos tweeted a summary of her horrifying findings.
She linked the shocking research to COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci:
Aborted baby scalps grafted onto mice. Their organs transplanted. Humanized mice developed at the University of Pittsburgh, all to study the immune system. Supported by Dr. Fauci’s NIAID. Paid for by us.
Aborted baby scalps grafted onto mice. Their organs transplanted. Humanized mice developed at the University of Pittsburgh, all to study the immune system. Supported by Dr. Fauci’s NIAID. Paid for by us. Why?https://t.co/pCH04vZrSM pic.twitter.com/xa0OUetozJ
— Stacy Trasancos (@StacyTrasancos) December 17, 2020
A few months later in the spring of 2021, a six-minute video produced by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) uncovered more horrifying research at the university.
“The University of Pittsburgh is a hub for some of the most barbaric experiments carried out on late-term aborted human infants — experiments funded by the United States government,” the narrator explains. “At the same time, the University sponsors the local Planned Parenthood abortion business in what looks like an illegal quid-pro-quo for fetal body parts.”
At one point, the video shows a photo from a protocol developed by a University of Pittsburgh scientist “for harvesting the freshest, most pristine livers from five-month-old aborted babies in order to isolate massive numbers of stem cells for experimental transplantation into adults.”
“You can see the premature baby, aborted alive via ‘labor induction,’” the description continues, “under surgical drapes, with the umbilical cord off to one side as the baby is cut open to harvest the liver.”
The scientist who developed this experiment reportedly received nearly $3 million from NIH.
The video also noted that the university has benefited from a multiyear, $1.4 million grant from NIH’s GUDMAP project, establishing the school as a major distribution hub for aborted fetal kidneys and other fetal body parts for NIH-funded projects across the country.
Biden axed Trump-era NIH restrictions on aborted baby experimentation
Shortly after taking office, Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration overturned restrictions on federal funding of the use of fetal tissue — body parts of aborted babies — for experimental purposes. The policy reversed a ban put in place by former President Donald Trump limiting federal funding for such research.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the NIH simultaneously, ended the NIH Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board, clearing the way for additional fetal tissue research by scientific organizations and universities.
HHS had previously enacted a policy under the Trump administration that halted all fetal tissue research at NIH facilities and required non-NIH facilities receiving federal funding — “extramural research communities” — to submit proposals for approval by an ethics advisory board for research using tissue derived from aborted fetuses.
NIH plans to spend a whopping $61 million on human fetal research this year.
“The law regulating human fetal tissue research is complex. Over the years, federal policy has changed significantly based on the views of each presidential administration,” noted Attorney Nicole Hunt, writing for Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen.
“Current federal law permits research on fetal human tissue if human embryos are not intentionally created or destroyed for the explicit purpose of research,” Hunt explained. “According to those statutory stipulations, it is still lawful for taxpayer dollars to fund research on aborted babies if the aborting mothers consent.”
“Opponents of this practice contend that taxpayers’ money should not be used to promote unethical research on children,” she said.
The measure is supported by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Americans United for Life, Catholic Vote, March for Life Action, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, Students for Life Action, and Concerned Women for America LAC.