WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Trump administration issued new funding guidelines for federal grants pertaining to frozen embryo adoption, recognizing them as preborn children to be adopted into loving homes rather than destroyed for medical experimentation.
The notice from the HHS Office of Population Affairs announces $1.9 million in opportunities for six grants relating to “Embryo Adoption Awareness and Services,” specifically “projects to increase public awareness of embryo adoption and provide individuals adopting embryos the medical and administrative services deemed necessary for such adoptions.”
The program, it says, “places the best interests of the child at the center of all activities, encompassing the child’s right to know their biological origins and medical history, the child’s right to be placed with adoptive parents who have undergone rigorous screening including background checks, home studies, and reference checks, and the importance of ensuring that biological and adoptive parents have reached informed, mutual agreement regarding the suitability of the placement.”
“Embryo adoption is distinct from infertility treatment,” it added. “Rather than addressing the reproductive needs of prospective parents, it serves the needs of a child already in existence, offering that child the opportunity for life within a stable and loving family. This distinction is fundamental to the design and purpose of this program.”
Grant recipients may not “pay for human tissues;” donate embryos to “embryo-destructive research;” “pay for, subsidize, promote, or otherwise support discarding or destroying human embryos;” or “create new human embryos.”
Heritage Foundation family policy expert Emma Waters told the Daily Signal that the announcement “refram(es) embryo adoption not as a treatment for infertility but as an act of charity toward a child already in existence who is in need of a loving home (…) The uncomfortable truth is that our loose approach to IVF has left millions of human embryos in indefinite storage, many of whom are destined to be discarded.”
“We’re encouraged to see federal support for both the public education and infrastructure that makes these adoptions possible, and we hope it opens doors for the thousands of families and children who could benefit,” Frozen Orphans founder Neel Upadhye added.
The move is welcome from an administration that has established a much more mixed record on life than President Donald Trump’s first term. Trump came out against a national abortion ban during the 2024 campaign and has refused to undo the Biden administration’s relaxation of abortion pill rules to allow them to be mailed into pro-life states and taken at home. On the other hand, he has cut off many federal funding streams to the abortion industry, and a long-delayed review of abortion pill safety data is reportedly underway, which could lead to regulation changes.
Even as it supports embryo adoption, the Trump administration also supports embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization (IVF) services, with the president repeatedly dubbing himself the “father of fertility.” Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a “new category of limited excepted benefits” (exemption from regulations under Obamacare and other federal health laws) to “expand the ability of employers to offer meaningful fertility benefits to their employees,” including IVF.