Francis Collins, a scientist who has defended using aborted baby body parts in research, is President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to lead the National Institutes of Health.
Biden, a pro-abortion Democrat, announced Collins as his choice to direct the NIH on Friday. Collins has served in the role since 2009 when President Barack Obama appointed him. President Donald Trump kept Collins in the position despite concerns raised by several prominent pro-life groups.
In 2018, Collins defended the NIH using taxpayer funds to support unethical research involving aborted baby body parts. Some of these gristly experiments include a University of Pittsburgh research project that transplanted the scalps of aborted babies onto mice and rats to study the human immune system.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Collins implied that research using aborted baby parts may be pro-life.
“I do think that part of the argument has been missing a little bit in the fetal tissue debate: the sort of immediate assumption that if you’re in support of fetal tissue research that you must also think abortion is just fine,” he told the news outlet. “Even for people who are pro-life, who are troubled by abortion, the use of fetal tissue for research, since they are being derived anyway, if that is going to save a life someday, seems like a credible stance.”
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The NIH doles out tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants to researchers who use aborted baby parts in their experiments.
The Trump administration began to crack down on these grants in response to pro-lifers’ concerns. It canceled several contracts, including one involving “humanized mice,” and took other steps to stop funding unethical research, including through the formation of the new advisory board.
In August, the bioethics advisory board recommended that the government reject grants for 13 research projects that plan to use aborted baby body parts. Trump appointed a number of leading pro-life researchers and bioethicists to the board last year.
The Trump administration also invested $20 million into promoting ethical alternatives to aborted baby parts in scientific research.
But Biden is expected to reverse this progress. Under the Obama administration, at least $77 million tax dollars were spent on research projects that used aborted baby body parts, and the Biden administration is expected to revert back to funding these unethical experiments.
Other pro-abortion leaders slated to fill Biden’s administration include:
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California as vice president
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as secretary of labor
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as commerce secretary
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland as secretary of the interior
Former Obama and Clinton administration leader Ronald Klain as chief of staff
David Kessler as the chief science officer of the COVID-19 response
Jaime Harrison as head of the Democrat National Committee
