{"id":658,"date":"2026-06-19T19:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T19:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=658"},"modified":"2026-06-19T19:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T19:40:23","slug":"hhs-pushes-fetal-personhood-in-new-grant-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=658","title":{"rendered":"HHS Pushes Fetal Personhood in New Grant Guidelines"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A recent funding<\/span> notice from the Department of Health and Human Services\u00a0 seems to contain a message for the anti-abortion movement: the administration hasn\u2019t entirely forgotten them. The offers applicants nearly $2 million in grant support to promote embryo adoption\u2014and while the program isn\u2019t new, it\u2019s now couched in the fundamentalist language of fetal personhood.<\/p>

Read more Trump and Iran: Stupid Is As Stupid Does<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis revised grant language to call embryos \u2018children\u2019 may seem small, but it could have enormous consequences for abortion, IVF treatment, and birth control access for people nationwide,\u201d Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights and health equity at the National Women\u2019s Law Center, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Embryo adoption was the Christian right\u2019s response to the rise in popularity of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in the early aughts. The fertility treatment involves generating far more embryos than any prospective parent is likely to use, since (as with natural conception) most fertilized eggs don\u2019t survive, often leaving IVF patients with numerous frozen embryos.<\/p>\n

Those embryos were sought after for stem cell research, which put some politicians on the right in a bind. While supporting legislation that moved stem cell research forward, President George W. Bush first established the federal embryo adoption grant program in 2002. Ever since, it\u2019s been a bone that conservative officials have dangled in front of anti-abortion groups in hopes of taking the political edge off of their support for IVF.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s new funding announcement sweetens the pot for proponents of fetal personhood. The total funds have nearly doubled, and the notice not only uses the words \u201cchild\u201d or \u201cchildren\u201d a total of 37 times, but specifically refers to the unused embryos as \u201cchildren who already exist and are in need of a family.\u201d It\u2019s far more strident than the program\u2019s previous framing, which is still available on the website of the HHS office that administers the funds. <\/p>\n

This opportunity is also only available to those organizations that seek to distribute frozen embryos in the name of fetal personhood. It excludes the few secular groups in this field that refer to the practice as \u201cembryo donation,\u201d a more medical phrasing (you might donate a kidney versus putting your kidney up for adoption).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has always been this interest in setting as many precedents as you can for recognizing fetal personhood\u201d among anti-abortion groups, \u201ceven in contexts that don\u2019t directly bear on what abortion opponents are most interested in,\u201d says Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis who studies reproductive rights and its opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that might be all that the Christian right is getting out of this funding announcement. \u201cEveryone is still looking to read tea leaves about what the Trump administration is going to do after the midterm,\u201d Ziegler says. \u201cI think the question with all of this is whether there\u2019s actually ever any muscle behind it, or if it\u2019s just feel-good talk for social conservatives so the administration can keep their support without actually doing anything.\u201d<\/p>

Read more There Is No Social Security Crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

While Trump has rolled back key protections for reproductive care, according to many anti-abortion activists, the president hasn\u2019t done nearly enough. Some have threatened to pull their support ahead of the midterms unless they see further action from the federal government on their agenda\u2014which would then alienate a much wider swath of the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration sees the same polling everybody else does, which is to suggest that doing a lot of what the Christian right would want would be really unpopular,\u201d Ziegler says. Public approval hasn\u2019t necessarily stopped Trump before, but \u201cI don\u2019t think these are issues about which he\u2019s really personally passionate.\u201d<\/p>\n

One sign that this isn\u2019t more than messaging is that the anti-abortion movement isn\u2019t really interested in embryo adoption anymore. Even among proponents, very few people were ultimately interested in giving away or adopting embryos, and when the process was relabeled as an adoption rather than a medical donation, it became even pricier and more arduous, involving home visits and legal fees. That\u2019s unlikely to change. So while the addition of personhood language might be something anti-abortion activists can chew on, that\u2019s about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like running a playbook that worked in 2002 when the movement has moved much further to the right on this issue,\u201d Ziegler says.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the administration realizes it doesn\u2019t need to do more. Where else will its firmest anti-abortion supporters go?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe alternative here to what is still objectively a pro-life and pro-family administration\u2014and pro-life and pro-family president\u2014is a party that ran on abortions with no restrictions whatsoever,\u201d a White House official told Politico<\/em>. \u201cThe choice here is very clear, I think, if you\u2019re someone on the pro-life side of things.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Trump DOJ Outlines Dubious Path to Force People Into Psychiatric Institutions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump\u2019s latest overture to the religious right offers little funding, but big rhetoric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nHHS Pushes Fetal Personhood in New Grant Guidelines - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=658\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"HHS Pushes Fetal Personhood in New Grant Guidelines - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trump\u2019s latest overture to the religious right offers little funding, but big rhetoric.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=658\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-19T19:40:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2e66a98a7befdfbc6dc1d08a9db14cfe.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1125\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"HHS Pushes Fetal Personhood in New Grant Guidelines\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-19T19:40:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658\"},\"wordCount\":837,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/ee35cc582726cc206d9239e2826e2163.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=658\",\"name\":\"HHS Pushes Fetal Personhood in New Grant Guidelines - 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