You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Trump Cancels Funding for Fetal Tissue Research That Could Lead to Life-Saving Cures

HeadlineJun 06, 2019

The Trump administration on Wednesday canceled millions of dollars in federal research funds for a California laboratory that uses fetal tissue for life-saving medical research. The Washington Post reports the move was ordered directly by President Trump. It represents a victory for anti-choice groups and comes as a number of states have passed bans on most abortions in a challenge to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. The laboratory at the University of California at San Francisco uses tissue gathered from elective abortions to carry out research into treatments for cancer, viruses like HIV and Zika, as well as treatments for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s. Doug Melton, a Harvard professor and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, said, “With these new arbitrary restrictions on research, the United States is ceding its role as the global leader in the development of cellular therapies and regenerative medicine.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top