Fetal Tissue Research and the Misread Compromise

The bill to restore federal funding for human fetal tissue research\nhas been passed by the House and awaits Senate approval. But it requires\nwomen who are willing to donate fetal tissue to certify that they did not have\nan abortion with the intent to donate. It further requires researchers to\nkeep the certifications on file and available for government audit. Both\nrequirements spell trouble....Never before has the state been held to have an\ninterest in establishing that the motivations of women who seek abortion meet\ncertain moral criteria....Accompanied by neither debate nor objection, the law\nwould redefine the privacy standards that govern medical practice....That\nfederal legislation mandating such measures could generate so little\ndiscussion, and could pass out of committee without comment by legislators\ngenerally sympathetic to health care issues and the concept of privacy in the\nchoice for abortion, suggests that many others besides the authors of H.R. \n2507 have to some degree been persuaded that the motives of women who might\nabort to donate is a central moral difficulty in the use of human fetal\ntissue

Biology · Compromise · Fetus · Political science · Pregnancy · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Ethics in Clinical Research · Law · Medicine · Psychology

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• Fetal Tissue Transplantation Policy in the United States

  Open Access•Dorothy E Vawter•Politics and the Life Sciences•1993

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