Obama continued, noting that his stem-cell decision was just the starting point for a larger reevaluation of the role scientists will play in his administration: "It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient--especially when it's inconvenient."
But critics of human embryo-destructive research have never been hostile to science. The dispute is not about whether stem-cell science should proceed; it is about how it will proceed. Will it go forward in a way that respects all human life? Or will it regard the taking of human life in its early stages as justified by the desire to advance biomedical knowledge and seek therapies? Listening to scientists who tell us what they want to do doesn't mean we should give them a blank check; we need to determine if what they're proposing, especially when it's inconvenient for unborn human life, is what they should be doing...
After seven years and two campaigns of the Democrats attacking the Republicans over President Bush's stem-cell policy, Obama evidently thought he had to make good on his promise to promote and fund embryo-destructive research, even if it is now scientifically superfluous. And superfluous is exactly what the past year and a half of stem-cell breakthroughs have made it.
The University of Michigan has 400 human embryos they plan to kill to create embryonic stem cell lines.
Tom McClusky explains what prolifers riders are. And no, they’re not prolife people who journey from place to place on horseback.
Who wants bad, inaccurate headlines? Here are just a few regarding Obama’s embryonic stem cell funding announcement.
BBC News: Obama ends stem cell funding ban
New York Times: Obama Lifts Bush’s Strict Limits on Stem Cell Research (the article later describes Bush’s policy as “a careful compromise”)
U.S. News and World Report: President Obama Reverses Bush's Stem Cell Research Ban
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