NIH Ends Abortion-Derived Fetal Tissue Research After Decades Of Federal Funding

The National Institutes of Health banned the use of aborted fetal tissue in all agency-funded research Thursday — a policy shift announced just one day before the annual March for Life descends on the nation’s capital.

The ban, first reported by the Daily Wire, covers all “NIH grants, cooperative agreements, transaction awards, research and development contracts, and the NIH Intramural Research Program.” The policy takes effect immediately. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Planned Parenthood Used Your Tax Dollars To Train Educators That Biological Sex Is A ‘Myth’)

“NIH is pushing American biomedical science into the 21st century,” NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “This decision is about advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease. Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people.”

Fetal tissue has been used in scientific research for roughly a century, playing a role in the development of vaccines for hepatitis A, chickenpox, shingles, and research on HIV. But NIH noted that federally funded projects using human fetal tissue have declined in recent years, with only 77 funded in Fiscal Year 2024. The agency argued that newer tools — including organoids, tissue chips, and computational biology — now provide “robust alternatives.”

The policy bars NIH funding for research using human fetal tissue from elective abortions, but permits agency funding for research involving tissue obtained from miscarriage or stillbirth, according to NIH grants policy.

President Donald Trump first restricted the practice in 2019, barring aborted fetal tissue from NIH intramural research conducted at government facilities and imposing new documentation requirements and Ethics Advisory Board reviews for certain outside applications. The Biden administration loosened those restrictions in 2021. Thursday’s action goes further, cutting off all NIH funding.

Bhattacharya clarified in an interview with Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro that the policy does not extend to all fetal tissue.

“Someone who has had a miscarriage and wants to do a meaningful thing and they donate the tissue from the miscarriage to science, that’s still allowed,” he said.

The director also echoed longstanding concerns among pro-life and Catholic officials over what they describe as moral corruption at organizations like Planned Parenthood, which critics accuse of profiting from the sale of aborted tissue. Bhattacharya called such sales “morally abhorrent” in his interview with Shapiro.

Science moves forward. Our policies should too. We’re investing in modern, cutting-edge research instead of relying on antiquated technologies.

Read more in my statement: ➡️ https://t.co/ssPZXXYXSx pic.twitter.com/Cb3VDQZ2ja

— Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD (@NIHDirector_Jay) January 22, 2026

Bhattacharya further pledged to invest in “modern, cutting-edge research” over “antiquated technologies” in an X post.

The move aligns with the administration’s broader efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, such as the Big Beautiful Bill’s slashing of Medicaid payments to the organization for one year.