WASHINGTON — A prominent anti-abortion organization is urging a Senate investigation into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over its past funding of research involving fetal organs and tissue.
Earlier this year, the NIH declared a halt to funding research using fetal tissue from elective abortions. However, the group known as 40 Days for Life is advocating for an examination of government-sponsored studies conducted prior to the implementation of this new policy.
“We possess a distinct insight into the harm caused by abortion—to women, society, and the unborn. Each day, we witness the abortion industry’s malpractice, including the misuse of aborted fetal body parts and tissues,” stated Shawn Carney, president of the group, in a letter issued on Thursday.
Carney made a formal appeal to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Chairman Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, encouraging them to initiate the investigation.
“We earnestly request your committees to examine whether the NIH’s practices adhered to legal, regulatory, Congressional funding mandates, and ethical standards required of our nation’s public health authorities,” he emphasized.
On July 29, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) confronted Dr. Anthony Fauci over taxpayer-funded research with fetal parts when he appeared before a Senate panel to face questioning on COVID-19.
During a line of questioning that went viral, Ernst recounted how researchers took parts from human fetal organs and put them into mice.
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer Ernst’s questions about the practice.
“American taxpayers financed experiments in which researchers surgically implanted livers, thymuses, and chunks of lung from nearly five-month-old aborted human babies into mice—experiments the researchers themselves named ‘BLT-L’ mice and described as a ‘sandwich of aborted body parts,’ Carney wrote.
Since 2018, NIH spending on human fetal tissue research has declined from nearly $120 million that fiscal year to approximately half that amount in fiscal year 2024, according to the agency itself.
The Trump administration argued in ending government fetal tissue research that alternatives such as “organoids, tissue chips, computational biology, and other cutting-edge platforms” have rendered the practice unnecessary.
The Trump administration has also taken steps to reduce animal testing in government-funded research.
Reps for Cassidy, Grassley, and the NIH did not immediately return requests for comment on the 40 Days for Life letter.