By Don C. Reed
The Trump Administration — for the second time — has blocked Federal funding of fetal cell research. (1)
Does that matter? It might if you are old enough to remember polio, that hideous condition which slowly strangled sufferers to death. The only treatment was the iron lung, like a suit of armor, worn by a person lying down. It created suction, to lift the chest of the sufferer, to gasp in the next wheezing breath. You wore it until you died.
Polio was so common in the 1950’s, it was thought we might need actual hotels, in which to die. Expensive? If polio costs had continued to climb, America might now be spending roughly $100 billion dollars a year.
Instead, polio is essentially vanished from the earth — and why?
A scientist named Jonas Salk defeated it. using therapy from fetal cells. A woman had an abortion, and bits of tissue were taken from the deceased to make a virus.
Like every abortion, it was tragic: a pregnancy terminated, a life denied.
But lives were also saved: “… millions of lives, particularly through vaccine development and production.” (2)
In addition to fighting polio, fetal cell research helped develop vaccines against measles, mumps, whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis A and rabies — all conditions which once killed people. Today, fetal tissue research is being used in the battle against Zika virus — and others. (3)
When President Trump had Covid, he received a treatment originally tested on fetal cells. (4)
But what happens when politics gets in the way?
As he did in his first administration, Trtump opposed fetal cell research, and tried to cut off its funding.…scientists were banned from pursuing studies that involved fetal tissue”. (5,6)
Many scientific groups came out in support of fetal cell research. (7)
Why did Trump impose multiple restrictions on this valuable research? (8)
“…the federal government’s… policy on the use of human fetal tissue in medical research is designed to please anti-abortion groups that have strongly supported President Donald Trump.” (9)
Our world’s population is in danger from various diseases. (10)
We need our country’s scientists at work on every conceivable medical threat — and politics must not be allowed to get in the way.
There is also a financial reason to use viruses to fight disease.
“Since 1994, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, viruses have saved society an estimated $1.38 trillion dollars…” (11)
. Fetal tissue research may help end or lessen Early Pregnancy Loss — miscarriages which cost the lives of nearly a million infants every year.
Massive regulation controls the obtaining and use of fetal tissue. There can be no profit in its sale (beyond reimbursement of direct costs), so there is literally no profit motive. A clear explanation of the various rules was put together by the Congressional Quarterly. (12)
But should we do it? Wisconsin Bioethicist Alta Charo put it best:
“We have a duty to use fetal tissue for research and therapy”…Virtually every person in this country has benefited from research using fetal tissue…every child who’s been spared the risks and misery (of a chronic disease) can thank scientists who used such tissue in research yielding the vaccines that protect us… Fetal tissue research (has) saved the lives and health of millions of people.” (13)
And Salk’s polio vaccine? It has made that dread disease virtually extinct, though vigilance is always required. (14)
When governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed a law that every aborted fetus must be buried or cremated. This would effectively criminalize fetal cell research. Fortunately, the Pence bill was found un-Constitutional, and struck down.
But what was then-Governor Pence’s reasoning, when he signed his bill into law?
It would, he said: “ensure the final dignified treatment of the unborn.” (15)
Consider: what if you were a battlefield surgeon, facing a tragic situation. Before you are two operating tables, each with badly wounded soldiers: one desperately ill, the other already dead. If we use cells from one, we may save him or her. If we do nothing, we must bury them both.
So: where does our duty lie?
Do we protect the dignity of the dead — or fight for the life of the living?
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/health/fetal-tissue-research-ban-trump-nih.html
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10724055/
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10724055/
5. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01035-6
6. /trump-ban-on-fetal-tissue-research-blocks-coronavirus-treatment-
8. https://www.aamc.org/media/11906/download
9. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.364.6445.1016
11. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6316a4.htm
12. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-114HPRT24553/html/CPRT-114HPRT24553.htm
13. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1510279?query=featured_home
14. https://www.cdc.gov/polio/about/index.html
15. https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12190380/mike-pence-trump-vice-president-abortion-funerals-fetuses