Posted on 10/06/2015 7:34:58 PM PDT by markomalley
Not one scientist who received a federal grant last year for research involving fetal tissue has donated to a Republican candidate, but about two dozen have given to Democrats.
Of about 150 researchers awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health in the category of "human fetal tissue," 23 have given money to Democratic political campaigns, according to an analysis of research grantees and two decades of data from the website Open Secrets.
About half of the donors gave at some point to President Obama. Six gave to one or more of the Democratic Party organizations. Others gave to various candidates, all Democrats.
The pattern of giving isn't a huge surprise, since scientists in general tend to favor Democrats. But it does underscore an increasingly wide chasm between Republicans and the scientific community as yet another scientific issue — the question of using stillborn or aborted fetuses for medical research — becomes highly politicized.
"I am not particularly surprised, but I do think this is unfortunate, a trend that is troubling for both scientific research and for society more generally," said Jacob Appel, a bioethicist based at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
Work involving fetal tissue comprises just a sliver of the research grants NIH hands out each year, totaling $76 million, or 0.2 percent of the agency's total budget. It has been legal since the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton ended a ban on it with support from many Republicans.
But after lingering under the radar for more than a decade, the issue catapulted into the spotlight in July, when abortion opponent David Daleiden released the first in a series of videos showing some Planned Parenthood clinics supply aborted fetal tissue to human tissue companies, which in turn sell it to medical researchers.
Now the issue of fetal tissue research is edged with controversy, as Republicans have contended Planned Parenthood illegally sold tissue for a profit. While Congress has focused on trying to strip federal funds from the women's health and abortion provider, a number of conservative states have moved to restrict or oversee fetal tissue research.
If Republicans look opposed to fetal tissue research, which has led to many important medical discoveries, that probably won't hurt them with base GOP voters, said Lynda Powell, a political science professor at the University of Rochester who has written about the influence of campaign contributions.
"It doesn't seem to damage them very much with their core constituency in the primary electorate," Powell said. "Those people are pretty suspicious of science themselves."
Nor will it cost them many votes among scientists, who don't comprise a big voting constituency and who have drifted toward the Democratic Party over the last few decades.
"I think the problem may be less that attitudes among scientists have changed and more that scientists and health professionals have moved en masse to the Democratic Party," Appel said.
I am shocked...
Shocked I tell you...
Democrats’ War on Babies
Well Gaolly!!!
They are the party of death.
Does anyone have a pic of the baby they used in the e trade commercials? I always laughed when I saw his “shocked face.”
Of course the whole Planned Parenthood fiasco slowly ebbs.
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