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Republicans Once Supported Fetal Tissue Research. Not Anymore.
President George H.W. Bush was staring down a tough re-election campaign in the spring of 1992, when he found himself caught in a shifting political debate. A ban on the use of federal funding for research using fetal tissue — which women can donate after terminating a pregnancy — had been in place for four years, despite two federal advisory panels deeming such a ban unnecessary. Mr. Bush vowed to continue the ban, a move that anti-abortion activists supported.
But not all of the opponents of abortion in Congress backed him up. Research from other countries had begun to suggest that fetal tissue could advance cures for devastating diseases, and several anti-abortion Republicans sided with Democrats in calling for an end to the ban.
Mr. Bush tried to placate the defectors by promising to create a fetal tissue bank that would collect such tissue from several sources unrelated to induced abortions — such as miscarriages and tubal pregnancies. But that effort failed dismally, when both Republicans and Democrats called it out as a sham. No less a conservative stalwart than Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina explained that these other sources of fetal tissue would not be nearly as abundant or useful to scientists as the tissue from terminated pregnancies. Only the latter can be effectively used to study human development from its earliest stages, or to model human organs and systems.
That bipartisan coalition of lawmakers went on to pass a bill containing several excellent compromises: The funding ban would be lifted, but safeguards would be put in place to prevent such research from encouraging abortions. And a new “Research Freedom” provision would prevent the Health and Human Services secretary from nixing scientific programs over political considerations in the future.
But not all of the opponents of abortion in Congress backed him up. Research from other countries had begun to suggest that fetal tissue could advance cures for devastating diseases, and several anti-abortion Republicans sided with Democrats in calling for an end to the ban.
Mr. Bush tried to placate the defectors by promising to create a fetal tissue bank that would collect such tissue from several sources unrelated to induced abortions — such as miscarriages and tubal pregnancies. But that effort failed dismally, when both Republicans and Democrats called it out as a sham. No less a conservative stalwart than Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina explained that these other sources of fetal tissue would not be nearly as abundant or useful to scientists as the tissue from terminated pregnancies. Only the latter can be effectively used to study human development from its earliest stages, or to model human organs and systems.
That bipartisan coalition of lawmakers went on to pass a bill containing several excellent compromises: The funding ban would be lifted, but safeguards would be put in place to prevent such research from encouraging abortions. And a new “Research Freedom” provision would prevent the Health and Human Services secretary from nixing scientific programs over political considerations in the future.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/opinion/fetal-tissue-research-ban-trump.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
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