Fetal Tissue Research and the Misread Compromise

Abstract

The bill to restore federal funding for human fetal tissue research has been passed by the House and awaits Senate approval. But it requires women who are willing to donate fetal tissue to certify that they did not have an abortion with the intent to donate. It further requires researchers to keep the certifications on file and available for government audit. Both requirements spell trouble....Never before has the state been held to have an interest in establishing that the motivations of women who seek abortion meet certain moral criteria....Accompanied by neither debate nor objection, the law would redefine the privacy standards that govern medical practice....That federal legislation mandating such measures could generate so little discussion, and could pass out of committee without comment by legislators generally sympathetic to health care issues and the concept of privacy in the choice for abortion, suggests that many others besides the authors of H.R. 2507 have to some degree been persuaded that the motives of women who might abort to donate is a central moral difficulty in the use of human fetal tissue.