Politics

Psaki: White House ‘Respectfully Disagrees’ With Catholic Church Position That It’s Wrong To Use Aborted Babies For Research

• White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the White House “respectfully disagrees” with the Catholic Church on the use of aborted fetal tissue for research.
• The chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities had condemned Biden’s move to reverse Trump’s ban on using aborted fetal tissue for tax-payer funded research.
• “The White House respectfully disagrees and we believe that it’s important to invest in science and look for opportunities to cure diseases, and I think that’s what this is hopeful to do,” Psaki said.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the White House “respectfully disagrees” with the Catholic Church on the use of aborted fetal tissue for research.

EWTN reporter Owen Jensen asked the White House press secretary Tuesday to address a statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning President Joe Biden’s decision to reverse former President Donald Trump’s ban on using aborted fetal tissue for taxpayer-funded research.

“It is unethical to promote and subsidize research that can lead to legitimizing the violence of abortion,” Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said in an April 20 statement. “Researchers have demonstrated that we can do effective scientific research and develop efficacious clinical treatments without harvesting tissue from aborted babies.”

“It is also deeply offensive to millions of Americans for our tax dollars to be used for research that collaborates with an industry built on the taking of innocent lives,” Jensen said.

Psaki, who has previously defended Biden as a “devout Catholic,” suggested that the White House believes using aborted fetal tissue could potentially help cure diseases.

“The White House respectfully disagrees, and we believe that it’s important to invest in science and and look for opportunities to cure diseases, and I think that’s what this is hopeful to do,” Psaki said.

WATCH:

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is “a crime against human life,” “constitutes a grave offense” and that a person who obtains an abortion is automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

“Such use tends to legitimize abortion as a source of ‘life-affirming’ treatments, and requires collaboration with the abortion industry, which should be avoided,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement during former President George W. Bush’s administration.