The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) chairman has praised the Trump Administration for their decision to withhold federal funding from proposals that would use fetal tissue, a release issued on the conference's website said. 

The Trump Administration recommended that the National Institutes of Health Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board not allow the use of federal funding for 13 of 14 research proposals that would have used fetal tissue.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who serves as chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said that this move is commendable for victims of abortion.

“We applaud the Administration for moving NIH in a direction that shows greater consideration for medical ethics in research, and greater respect for innocent human life,” Naumann said in the release. “It is neither ethical nor necessary to further violate the bodies of aborted babies by commodifying them for use in medical research. The victims of abortion deserve the same respect as every other human person. We are grateful that the Administration is following through on its commitment to end federal funding of research using aborted fetal tissue.”

In the past, Naumann has also praised the Trump Administration for their work to ensure that global health assistance from the U.S. does not help to provide or encourage abortions.

On August 20, Naumann and the USCCB issued the following release on the conference's website:

“The Trump Administration deserves our praise for ensuring that U.S. global health assistance funding actually promotes health and human rights, and doesn’t undermine them by promoting abortion. Killing innocent and defenseless unborn children through abortion is not health care. Abortion violates an unborn child’s most basic human right, the right to life, and it also can wound the mother emotionally and physically. Americans recognize this injustice and an overwhelming majority of them oppose giving tax dollars to organizations that are more committed to promoting abortion than providing health services.”