Bush Opposes Use of Aborted Tissue

Inserting himself again into the tumult of the abortion debate, President Bush on Friday said he opposes the federal government’s 8-year-old policy of funding research that uses tissue from aborted fetuses.

Bush did not say that he intends to overturn the policy, but he declared: “I do not support research from aborted fetuses.”

His comments, made in response to a reporter’s question after he had met with a group of governors, are noteworthy because major anti-abortion groups in recent years largely have dropped the issue from their agendas because of Congress’ broad support for fetal tissue research.

“It has not been a priority in the last two Congresses, at least,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, a leading anti-abortion group. Johnson noted that Congress on two occasions has voted to support funding for the research, in 1993 and again in 1997, when the Senate voted, 60 to 38, in favor of the research.

The research in question uses tissues from aborted fetuses for a variety of purposes, including transplantation into patients. University of Colorado researcher Curt Freed, for example, said that Parkinson’s disease patients who could not drive a car or handle a knife and fork have benefited from fetal cell transplants, allowing some to regain their driver’s licenses, eat at restaurants and even hike or coach sports.

But anti-abortion groups say that it is immoral to use fetuses in research. “Abortion kills a human being and, once that person dies, his body should not be harvested,” said Judie Brown of the American Life League.

Federal funding for the research was barred by the administrations of Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush. President Clinton removed the funding moratorium on his second day in office, and the government has spent $124 million on such research since 1993.

Bush also opposes a separate but related type of research, known as stem cell research, that also holds promise for curing disease.

Stem cell research has generated even more controversy than fetal tissue research in recent years, with anti-abortion groups pushing for a ban on taxpayer funding of the practice. Some stem cells come from human embryos that, if implanted in a woman’s uterus, might go on to develop into children.

In his comments Friday, Bush said he supports stem cell research using cells that come from adults and fetal tissue research using tissue derived from miscarriages, but he opposes research using embryonic stem cells or tissue from aborted fetuses.

Scientists, however, say that miscarriages are not a significant source of fetal tissue for research.

“I believe there are some wonderful opportunities for adult stem cell research,” Bush said, responding to a reporter’s question after the president met privately with governors to discuss education. “I believe we can find stem cells from fetuses that died a natural death. And I do not support research from aborted fetuses.”

Bush made similar statements during the 2000 presidential campaign.

He turned aside a question about whether he would move to bar federal funding for the research. But the scientific community is watching warily.

“It sounds like he’s thought about it, he’s opposed to this, and it definitely concerns us,” said Tim Leshan, director of public policy for the American Society for Cell Biology, which is helping lead the effort to fund stem cell research. “We think this research is vital.”

It was the second time that Bush has waded into the abortion controversy in his first week as president. On Monday, he issued an executive order to withhold federal funds from international family planning groups that offer abortions, perform abortion counseling or lobby for abortion rights. His action reversed a policy set by President Clinton and restored one adopted by President Reagan and Bush’s father.

Fetal tissue research projects won $20 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health last year. The agency plans to offer the first grants for embryonic stem cell research this year.

Bush could use an executive order to bar funding for stem cell research or simply ask agency chiefs to stop the funding. But he would face a higher hurdle in trying to bar funding for fetal tissue research.

In 1993, Congress expressly prohibited the executive branch from stopping fetal tissue transplantation research. The law reads: “No official of the executive branch may impose a policy [saying] that the Department of Health and Human Services is prohibited from conducting or supporting any research on the transplantation of human fetal tissue for therapeutic purposes.”

Johnson, of Right to Life, said that language virtually precludes Bush from acting on his own to try to end federal funding. “They nailed it down, all four corners,” he said.

By contrast, no such law would hinder Bush if he moved to stop stem cell research funds. In fact, the legal status of stem cell work is ambiguous because Congress has barred federal funding for “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed.”

However, the NIH has said it can fund experiments that use stem cells as long as private money covers the cost of extracting them from embryos. But Bush could readily nullify the NIH interpretation of the law, lawyers and policy experts said.

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Times staff writer Marlene Cimons contributed to this story.