Moral, and ethical considerations
The Trump administration is limiting the use of fetal tissues obtained from elective abortions for biomedical research. Should the government pay for medical research that uses tissue from aborted fetuses? Can human tissue be used as an object of research? Can eventual positive results justify such means? This debate, ever smoldering, has erupted again, pitting humanitarian and anti-abortion forces in the Trump administration against some scientists who say the tissue is essential for studies that could benefit patients.
As said The New York Times, “H.H.S. issued a statement in past September saying it would conduct a “comprehensive review of all research involving fetal tissue to ensure consistency with statutes and regulations.” The statement cited “serious regulatory, moral, and ethical considerations” and said the department “is continuing to review whether adequate alternatives exist to the use of human fetal tissue in H.H.S. funded research and will ensure that efforts to develop such alternatives are funded and accelerated.”
In mid-December last year, representatives of the Trump administration informed one Californian university that they were not going to extend their contract research projects involving tissues from elective abortions. Likewise, last September, scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, were informed that they could no longer acquire new fetal tissue for their experiments. Similar actions are being carried out at other North American Research Institutes (see HERE ).
Posts related https://bioethicsobservatory.org/2017/06/biological-status-early-human-embryo/21605
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