WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the first year of his second administration, President Donald Trump has advanced the pro-life agenda through several key accomplishments, including capping off his first year by announcing the end of using human fetal tissue in federally funded research. 

“Effective immediately,” funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “will no longer be used to support research involving human fetal tissue from elective abortions,” reads the January 22 announcement. The NIH stated the new policy applies across the agency’s entire “intramural” and “extramural” research programs, including all “grants, cooperative agreements, other transaction awards, and research and development contracts.” In Fiscal Year 2024, the NIH reported that it had funded 77 research projects using aborted human fetal tissue, which will now decline to zero when those projects are not renewed or researchers change their methods.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people,” said NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya.

Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump has taken several other notable pro-life actions. In his first week, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy that does not allow taxpayer dollars to support foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that perform or promote abortion in other nations. The action restored the original policy put in place by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 at the International Conference on Population in Mexico City and revoked the Biden administration’s halt of the policy. During President Trump’s first term, he expanded the policy to cover about $8 billion in global health assistance. In January 2026, the State Department is expected to finalize another expansion of the policy to prevent roughly $30 billion in American foreign assistance from subsidizing gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs overseas.

According to the policy framework, foreign organizations receiving American taxpayer dollars will have to certify that they do not provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning, and do not promote gender ideology or any discrimination based on diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

In 2025, the second Trump administration made other pro-life strides, including:

• An executive order directing full enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which bars taxpayer dollars from being used to fund elective abortions domestically.
• Signing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that cut Medicaid funding to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. 
• The FDA launching a full safety review of the chemical abortion pill Mifepristone.
• Reversing a Biden administration rule that misinterpreted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) and attempted to preempt state abortion laws by forcing emergency room doctors to perform abortions.
• Banning the Department of Veterans Affairs from performing abortions, including in cases of rape or incest, which applied pro-life policy directly within a federal health care system.
• Pardoning 23 peaceful pro-life advocates that the Biden administration targeted for prosecution and prison under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for merely peacefully opposing abortions at abortion facilities.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “We commend the Trump administration for ending the use of aborted human babies in federally funded research. The pro-life executive actions of President Donald Trump’s first year are helping protect the most vulnerable among us and returning the federal government to a pro-life posture. American taxpayer dollars and government agencies should never be involved in the murder of innocent life.”

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