Federal Funding of
Fetal Tissue Research Draws Criticism

July 12, 2002—Washington, DC: The first federally funded project using stem cells obtained from unborn children aborted up to eight weeks after conception has been approved by the U.S. government.

The move has generated considerable debate among pro-life organizations, some of whom say the Bush administration caved in while others point out Bush's hand was forced by a law passed during the Clinton administration.

The decision, made in late May, comes almost a year after President Bush announced a policy on stem cell research prohibiting the federal funding of any new research on stem cells taken from human embryos. Bush said the decision was based on his moral opposition to destroying additional embryos for research purposes.

Because of a discrepancy in regulations, stem cells taken from older unborn children are subject to different rules than similar cells from embryos.

Bush's stem cell funding restriction does not apply to research on stem cells obtained from older unborn children, according to officials at the National Institutes of Health. Such work falls under federal law passed during the Clinton administration.

On May 20, the NIH awarded the funds for research on stem cells from human fetuses to the team of stem cell pioneer John Gearhart at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Gearhart's team received a grant capped at $150,000 to study two insulin-producing stem cell lines with potential applications for diabetes treatment. The application process for the fetal cell work was unusually demanding, Gearhart said.

"We were sweating for a while," said Gearhart, who co-discovered human stem cells in 1998. "They went through our records like you wouldn't believe, and rightly so."

In another rare step for a relatively small grant application, NIH officials notified the White House staff when Gearhart's proposal was approved, said administration spokesman Scott McClellan. The approval "was based on long-standing law and guidelines," McClellan said.

However, it appears the Bush administration was forced to approve the funding.

The administrations of Presidents Reagan and Bush denied funding of transplantation research using tissue taken from abortion victims. Over time, lopsided support developed in Congress to overturn the pro-life funding ban. In 1992, President Bush vetoed the NIH reauthorization bill to prevent the pro-life policy from being overturned.

But once Clinton took office in January 1993, it was no longer possible to block enactment of such legislation and Congress passed a law in 1993 that made it illegal for presidents to ban funding for such research.

In 1997, pro-life Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) offered an amendment to prohibit the use of fetal tissue from induced abortions in a bill providing expanded funding for research into Parkinson's disease. Pro-life groups supported this amendment, but the Senate rejected it 38-60.

Most lawmakers and researchers didn't understand that Bush's stem cell funding restrictions would not apply to funding for fetal cells. But Wendy Baldwin, deputy director for extramural research at NIH, said last week the agency can provide funds for projects using stem cells that have been taken from human fetuses since Bush's funding restriction decision.

The controversy has pro-life organizations at odds over whether Bush failed or whether his hands were tied by the 1993 law.

Some pro-life groups say Bush should have tried to stop all funding of work using embryos and fetuses. Bush signaled his position in 2000, responding to a candidate questionnaire from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "I oppose using federal funds to perform fetal tissue research from induced abortions," he wrote.

"If he is faithful to the principles he enunciated in the campaign, my hope is you'd begin to see change," said Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council.

Connor challenged Bush in a letter to him to change the 1993 law. He said that the 1993 law which the White House claimed is tying its hands is arguably a violation of the Constitution's separation of powers principle and should be challenged.

However, National Right to Life legislative director Doug Johnson says Bush can't change the law governing funding of fetal-tissue research.

Some pro-life advocates are under "the impression that President Bush had some authority to prevent this particular use of federal funds," Johnson explains. But that is untrue he says.

"Federal funding of transplantation research using fetal tissue is governed not merely by 'Clinton-era rules,' but by an act of Congress enacted in 1993, which removed this matter from the authority of the President and his appointees," Johnson said. "The NIH reauthorization bill enacted June 10, 1993 (Public Law 103-43) explicitly removed authority from the President and his appointees to block transplantation research using fetal tissue from induced abortions."

Since enactment of the 1993 law, NIH has funded many experiments involving fetal tissue from induced abortions.

"The only thing new about the project," says Johnson, "is that it involves stem cells, but it is still
covered by the 1993 law."

Congress must overturn the 1993 to allow the Bush administration to block the fetal-tissue research funding. However, pro-life lawmakers are likely still well shy of the votes needed to make the change.

One reason there are separate federal rules for research involving human fetuses dates to the early 1990s, well before the discovery of human stem cells. Federal funding for such research began when President Bill Clinton took office.

In 2000, the Clinton administration released rules for federal funding of both types of stem cells. The rules for Gearhart's embryonic cells mirrored the earlier regulations for fetal tissue research.

To supposedly avoid creating any extra incentive for abortion, women can be asked to donate a fetus for research only after they have decided to have an abortion. Women seeking abortions must give informed consent, cannot be paid for the donation, and cannot choose a potential recipient for transplantation of the cells.

The Clinton guidelines allow federal funds to cover the derivation of cells from the fetus, though not the abortion itself.

Although Gearhart's lab is one of only a few in the world specializing in fetal-derived stem cells, that could change if more of his lines are approved for federal funding. Once a line is approved, NIH officials said, researchers wishing to use the same cells have a shorter application process.