Yes, the NIH has historically funded research involving fetal tissue from elective abortions (and with consent only after an abortion was already chosen – there are ethical constructs in place.) It’s a subject of debate, but it has also contributed to advances in vaccines, treatments for various diseases, and understanding human development. The Trump administration put restrictions on this in 2019, and the Biden administration lifted them again in 2021. Specific advancements we’ve made from the use of fetal tissue in research and development have included the polio vaccine, the rubella vaccine, and the hepatitis A vaccine, which was derived from a fetus aborted in the 1960’s, as was the rubella vaccine. Also Adenovirus, chicken pox, Ebola, rabies, and shingles vaccines. [Source] The rubella vaccine has prevented literal millions of birth defects and fetal deaths worldwide, and rubella is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects.

Additionally, fetal tissue has helped us study how congenital disabilities occur, given us insight into HIV/AIDS, and may eventually provide treatments for blindness, spinal cord injuries, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Zika virus, and more. Fetal tissue has also been used as a source of stem cells, which can develop into a wide variety of tissues, which has broad implications for regenerative medicine and gene therapy, potentially treating osteoarthritis, heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer. [Source]

The NIH has also funded some research involving the mixing of human cells with animals, typically to study diseases or develop therapies. They’re referred to as “chimera” experiments. A prominent example of these is the creation of “human-pig chimeras”, which involves injecting human cells into pig embryos, aiming to grow organs like hearts or kidneys that can be transplanted into humans without being rejected due to their partially human cell composition. This is focused on organ shortage issues – a truly pro-life policy.

We have no definitive proof yet of where COVID-19 originated (and how), so the author has no reason to speculate that it had something to do with gain-of-function research.

Full contextual analysis of Section 3: The General Welfare here.