Confirming Thomas Bell Could Bring Justice To The Aborted Babies

A recent nomination hearing was held in the U.S. Senate in which lawmakers considered Thomas March Bell, a former fetal tissue investigator, for the inspector general role at the Department of Health and Human Services. The Senate Committee on Finance will now determine whether his nomination is advanced to the full Senate.

If confirmed, Bell will have the opportunity to revive a 2021 federal investigation into the University of Pittsburgh’s potentially illicit use of fetal tissue obtained from aborted babies. In one particularly gruesome study published in 2020, the scalps of second-trimester infants aborted at an affiliated hospital were sliced off and attached to mice and rats by Pitt researchers. 

Bell was named in March to replace former HHS Inspector General Christi Grimm, whom President Trump fired in January. In a letter sent before the hearing to U.S. Senate Committee on Finance Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Democratic members demanded that Bell’s consideration be tabled, writing that Grimm’s removal by Trump was “unlawful and illegitimate.”

The members have been unhappy with Grimm’s potential replacement due to his criticism of how the abortion industry has conducted business. Between 2015 and 2017, Bell served as staff director and chief counsel for a House select panel examining the purported sale of fetal tissue for research in Planned Parenthood facilities, which have ties to the University of Pittsburgh.

During the hearing, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., criticized the Biden administration, stating that it “wouldn’t touch” abortion facility oversight, including whether facilities complied with proper medical procedures. Last year, Lankford cosponsored a bill aimed at ending the use of federal taxpayer funds for research involving human fetal tissue from abortions and closing legal loopholes that have enabled the trafficking of aborted fetal body parts. Bell said that he would “follow the law and follow the facts” when asked if he would track the issue.

The HHS-OIG investigation into Pitt’s fetal tissue research was initiated after suspicions of unlawful conduct — including claims of altered abortion procedures to obtain tissue — were detailed by Republican lawmakers in multiple letters to the Biden administration. The assertions were primarily based on a 2015 grant application submitted to the National Institutes of Health in which the university highlighted its ability to minimize the time between collecting fetal tissue and cooling it for storage.

Former Inspector General Grimm indicated that her office would follow up upon completion of the inquiry, and Pitt got out in front of the probe by hiring one of the university’s graduates and his law firm to conduct a regulatory assessment of the research studies involving fetal tissue. The effort seemed to pay off, as the federal investigation died off shortly after the law firm’s report, which claimed no serious wrongdoing, was published.

The law firm review’s most glaring omission was a failure to look into the nearby hospital, UPMC Magee-Womens, which contains one of the university’s tissue banks and provides fetal organs for the vast majority of Pitt studies. Allegations of partial-birth abortions and the harvesting of fetal organs to enhance research outcomes went unexamined, according to the final report. Bell’s confirmation would open the door to a thorough look at this facility and its tangled relationship with the university.

Shortly after nominating Bell earlier this year, President Trump announced that his administration planned to “look into” the harvesting of aborted baby organs. His National Institutes of Health director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, vowed during his Senate hearing that he would discontinue the use of aborted fetal tissue in grants funded through the agency.

So far, the administration appears to be following through. Last month, the NIH pledged that more than a dozen human fetal tissue projects initiated by the Biden administration and intended to continue into next year would not be renewed. The University of Pittsburgh has been a major recipient of NIH funding, currently ranking sixth in the country for research dollars among all colleges and universities.

Ryan Navarro is a therapist in Pittsburgh who formerly interned and worked at UPMC.