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Read. Follow. Verify.Protecting Life and Integrity in Research Act of 2024 (S. 3713)
Last action · January 31, 2024: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.Sponsor: Cindy Hyde-Smith
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What This Bill Would Do
This bill proposes a federal ban on conducting, funding, or approving any research that uses obtained from induced abortions. It also amends existing laws to restrict federal research involving fetal tissue exclusively to tissue obtained from miscarriages or stillbirths.
If passed, this bill would prohibit federal agencies from supporting research projects that utilize fetal tissue from induced abortions, potentially impacting ongoing medical studies and vaccine development that rely on such materials.
Who It Would Affect
Groups the bill's text would affect if enacted, as described in the record. Being affected is not a position for or against it.
Medical Research Institutions
These organizations would be prohibited from using federal funds for research involving fetal tissue from induced abortions.
Federal Health Agencies
Agencies like the NIH would be required to update their grant approval processes and research oversight to comply with the new restrictions.
Key Facts
- Prohibits all federal departments, agencies, and offices from conducting, funding, or approving research involving human fetal tissue obtained from induced abortions.
- Explicitly permits federal research on human fetal tissue obtained from miscarriages or stillbirths, subject to existing Public Health Service Act regulations.
- Allows for the development of new, ethical cell lines for vaccines and genetic vectors, provided they are not derived from fetal tissue obtained via induced abortion.
- Amends the Public Health Service Act to redefine 'human fetal tissue' to include tissue from induced abortions, miscarriages, or stillbirths.
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- Defines 'miscarriage' as the involuntary death of an unborn child at less than 20 weeks gestation.
- Defines 'stillbirth' as the involuntary death of an unborn child at 20 weeks gestation or more.
- Repeals Section 113 of the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993.
- Prohibits the solicitation, acquisition, receipt, or acceptance of fetal tissue donations known to be obtained from induced abortions or pregnancies deliberately initiated to provide such tissue.
- Excludes transfers of fetal tissue for the purposes of autopsy or burial from the new prohibitions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this bill ban all fetal tissue research?
Will this affect vaccine development?
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Votes, people, money & the original sourceWhere This Stands
Currently in committee. The next step in the legislative lifecycle is Floor Vote.
Version history
Only one version on file - nothing to compare yet. As later stages (committee substitute, engrossed, enrolled) are captured, the redline appears here.
View official text →Full breakdown
Who this bill affects and the strongest case for and against it, written only from the bill’s own text.
Sponsors
Discoveries
Patterns POLISCOPE noticed across the record. These are observations to investigate, not conclusions.
Narrowing of Permissible Research
The bill shifts federal policy from a regulatory framework for fetal tissue research to a restrictive one that explicitly bans tissue from induced abortions.
Connected Entities
Sources
www.congress.gov
Analysis Score
0–100- Significance85How much this matters to a regular citizen
- Controversy90Intensity of disagreement among stakeholders
- Entertainment20Compellingness for a non-policy-wonk reader
- Buzz40Current news / social attention level
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