Ben Carson Refutes Claims He Performed Research on Aborted Fetal Tissue: 'It Is Simply Not True'

2016 presidential hopeful Ben Carson continues to defend himself against critics who question the retired neurosurgeon's pro-life stance after he was accused of doing research on aborted fetal tissue in 1992.

Carson took to his Facebook page this week to refute claims that he performed research on aborted fetal body parts in 1992. The accusations come after a blogger posted a research paper from 1992 with four authors, one of whom was Carson, that described how the research involved the testing of celluloid cysts on two aborted fetuses, one nine weeks and one 17 weeks old.

"Today I was accused by the press as having done research on fetal tissue. It simply is not true. The study they distributed by an anonymous source was done in 1992. The study was about tumors. I won't bore you with the science. There were four doctors' names on the study. One was mine. I spent my life studying brain tumors and removing them. My only involvement in this study was supplying tumors that I had removed from my patients," Carson wrote on Facebook.

"Those tissue samples were compared to other tissue samples under a microscope. Pathologists do this work to gain clues about tumors. I, nor any of the doctors involved with this study, had anything to do with abortion or what Planned Parenthood has been doing. Research hospitals across the country have microscope slides of all kinds of tissue to compare and contrast. The fetal tissue that was viewed in this study by others was not collected for this study," he added.