By Lucretia Hughes Klucken
Shawn Carney, president and CEO of 40 Days for Life, is drawing renewed attention to federally funded coronavirus research that used tissue obtained from aborted babies—research conducted while Dr. Anthony Fauci led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The allegations resurfaced after Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, confronted Fauci during a Senate hearing and described experiments involving human fetal liver, thymus and lung tissue implanted into laboratory mice.
According to Ernst, researchers at the University of North Carolina used tissue obtained from babies aborted at approximately five months’ gestation to create humanized laboratory mice. Researchers called the model “BLT-L,” referring to bone marrow, liver, thymus and lung.
Let us be clear about what that clinical language represents.
These were not imaginary laboratory materials. This was human tissue taken from developing babies whose lives ended through abortion. Their organs were then implanted into mice and used in experiments supported, at least in part, by American taxpayers.
The underlying scientific record confirms that researchers developed mice containing human fetal lung tissue, along with liver and thymus tissue, to study diseases affecting human lungs. The model was described in a peer-reviewed paper published in 2019. Researchers later used humanized mouse models in coronavirus-related work.
That documented history gives weight to the central concern raised by Ernst and Carney. However, accuracy requires an important distinction: Fauci served as director of NIAID, one institute within the larger National Institutes of Health. Describing every NIH-funded experiment as one personally designed or directly approved by Fauci would go beyond the available evidence.
What cannot be dismissed is that this research occurred within the federal biomedical system during Fauci’s leadership at NIAID, and taxpayer money helped sustain that system.
When Ernst asked Fauci whether he believed human fetal tissue should be placed into mice for coronavirus research, he did not provide the public with an answer. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as he reportedly did repeatedly throughout the hearing.
Carney addressed the controversy during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily, arguing that abortion supporters refuse to confront what abortion produces.
His point deserves serious consideration.
The abortion industry depends upon sanitized language. A baby becomes a fetus. Body parts become specimens. Human organs become biological material. The deliberate ending of a developing human life becomes health care.
Then, when that child’s liver, thymus, lungs, scalp or other tissue enters a laboratory, the public is told to focus only on the potential scientific benefit—not on where the material came from or whether taxpayers should be forced to support its use.
Scientific advancement does not erase moral responsibility.
Researchers and defenders of fetal-tissue research argue that such material has contributed to studies involving infectious diseases, cancer and other serious medical conditions. They also contend that tissue used in research is donated following abortions performed for unrelated reasons.
That explanation does not settle the moral question. It merely describes the process.
The issue is not only whether useful information can be obtained. The issue is whether the government should build medical research upon the remains of children lost to elective abortion, especially when modern alternatives may be available.
In January, the Trump administration announced that NIH funding could no longer be used for research involving human fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said the decision would steer federal investment toward newer technologies capable of modeling human health and disease while reflecting the values of the American people.
The prohibition does not cover long-established cell lines derived years ago from fetal cells, but it ends federal support for experiments using newly obtained tissue from elective abortions.
That distinction matters because the controversy described by Ernst involved actual fetal organs and tissue—not merely laboratory cell lines reproduced over decades.
The new policy also undermines the argument that this practice must continue indefinitely for science to advance. If researchers can pursue ethical alternatives—including organoids, adult stem cells, advanced computer modeling and other technologies—then taxpayer-funded institutions have a responsibility to use them.
Americans were told repeatedly during the COVID-19 pandemic to trust the science. But trust is not blind obedience. It requires transparency, accountability and an honest discussion of how research is conducted.
The public deserved to know that fetal organs were being implanted into animals for federally supported research. Americans also deserved the right to debate whether their money should fund it.
Instead, too much of the nation’s biomedical establishment operated behind technical terminology that prevented ordinary citizens from understanding what was being done in their name.
Carney and Ernst have forced that conversation into the open.
No medical title, government position or promise of scientific progress places anyone beyond moral scrutiny. If federal officials approved, supervised or funded research involving tissue obtained from aborted babies, they should explain their decisions plainly.
The American people should not have to decode scientific papers to discover the truth about what their government financed.
Science must serve humanity without stripping human life of its dignity. When research treats the remains of an aborted child as raw material, Americans have every right—and every responsibility—to say there must be a better way.
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