14. Department of Health and Human Services · Major · Needs Congress
Prohibit research using aborted fetal cells and baby body parts
Printed page 455 14. Department of Health and Human Services
“There is never any justification for ending a child’s life as part of research, and the research benefits from splicing or growing aborted fetal cells and aborted baby body parts can easily be provided by alternative sources. All such research should be prohibited as a matter of law and policy.”
What has happened
- Partially done
NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-028 bars NIH funds for research using human fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions, across the Intramural Research Program and all extramural grants, cooperative agreements, other transaction awards and R&D contracts, superseding the 2019 and 2021 notices. It is a funding condition, not the prohibition "as a matter of law" the Mandate asks for: it does not reach privately funded research, it leaves tissue from miscarriage and stillbirth permitted, and it does not by its terms address established fetal cell lines.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The NIH news release announcing the shift (nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/…) is behind a bot check and refused to open for us, so it is a lead; the Guide Notice itself is the operative document and was read in full.
- Negative searches run 2026-08-27: Federal Register full-text “fetal tissue research” (HHS, since 2025-01-20) — 0 documents; “human fetal tissue” across all agencies — 8 documents, only one of them an NIH policy notice (NIH Policy on Enhancing Security Measures for Human Biospecimens, 2025-12-12), which is about national-security handling of biospecimens, not fetal-tissue research. The titles of the bills we keep and search, for “fetal” — 0 hits, so among them nothing has been enacted or even introduced to make the prohibition statutory.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- research using aborted fetal cells and body parts
- ID
- 1218