Federal law enforcement agents are investigating a study funded by the National Institute of Health that allegedly harvested fetal kidneys through abortion practices that some experts warn may be illegal.
Documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Judicial Watch and The Center for Medical Progress revealed that a top federal government agency issued a subpoena to investigate the fetal organ project at the University of Pittsburgh. Emails between the NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General show there was an investigation in 2021 into the “fetal tissue collection procedures” associated with the NIH-funded project at the university.
The investigation was launched months after The Center for Medical Progress obtained documents in a FOIA that showed the grant application for the project detailed the need to “minimize” the “warm ischemic time” when harvesting the fetal kidneys through labor-induced abortions.
Warm ischemic time is the “amount of time that an organ remains at body temperature after its blood supply has been stopped or reduced,” according to the Organ Toolbox Workgroup.
Dr. David Prentice, vice president and research director of the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, said this grant description leaves room to believe the possibility that illegal, gruesome abortion tactics were used as a means to ensure the highest quality organs could be used for the study.
“We can’t say it’s for sure that they waited to deliver the baby, but there’s certainly the distinct possibility based on the grant description,” he told The Dallas Express. “There’s a strong possibility that the baby is born alive.”
Prentice said the chemicals used in labor-induced abortions to terminate the pregnancy often damage the fetus’ organs, so there is an incentive to conduct shady practices.
He clarified there is no way to be certain about the tactics used in the study due to redactions in the documents and the lack of information provided about the subpoena. Among the redacted information was the identity of the abortion provider.
Still, Prentice hopes the investigation will lead to reform at the agency.
“The NIH is supposed to be doing oversight,” he told DX. “They obviously did not do their duty.”
The University of Pittsburgh and HHS did not respond to a request for comment.
David Daleiden, the founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress, said the revelation that the HHS itself is investigating the study shows the likelihood that proper protocols were ignored.
“The only way the University of Pittsburgh could have gotten away with what they have written in this grant application is if they were lying to the NIH,” he told The Dallas Express. “They’re able to get away with literal murder.”
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh stated in their grant application that the study would create a “pipeline” for fetal research. They emphasized the need to have half of the donated fetuses be minorities, with a quarter coming from black women.
The university works extensively on fetal tissue research, one study of which was revealed by The Center for Medical Progress to be a partnership with Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania. Another study at the university funded by the NIH implanted aborted fetus scalps onto lab mice.
Daleiden said the federal government’s support for fetal tissue research inherently encourages disreputable practices.
“It’s one of the essential problems with the involvement with money and monetary rewards in the harvesting and transfer of aborted fetal tissue,” he told The Dallas Express. “The demand for fetal organs for experimentation directly creates incentives for very abusive actions against vulnerable patients and abusive actions against vulnerable infants. You don’t have to look much further than this grant application.”
