The embryos Lanza used, which were donated for research, appear not to have been damaged, Landis acknowledged. However, she said, "it is impossible to know definitively" that the embryos were not in some subtle way harmed by the experiment. And "no harm" is the basis of the Bush policy, she said.
Landis said the only way to prove that the technique does not harm embryos would be to transfer many of them to women's wombs and see whether the resulting babies were normal. But it would be unethical to do that experiment, she said, so the question cannot be answered.
That standard has Lanza fuming. By all scientifically recognized measures, he said, the embryos -- currently frozen in suspended animation because they were donated for research and not to make babies -- are normal, he said.....
As long as that risk is there, funding under Bush's policy will not be available, with one possible exception, Landis said.
Although the NIH will not fund Lanza's method of making stem cells, she said, the agency might fund studies on the cells themselves once they are isolated from the embryos with private money and the embryos are shown to be healthy.
Asked who would make that funding decision, Landis said it would be up to NIH officials.
Yuval Levin provides his thoughts on ACT's latest.
The Associated Press has a couple more details (some which differ from the original story) regarding Daniel Jarrett II's assault on his pregnant girlfriend.
A 24-year-old college student faces life in prison on charges of killing his girlfriend's unborn child by beating her.
Westland police allege Daniel Jarrett II of Wayne threw the 19-year-old to the ground several times and kicked her in the abdomen after she told him she didn't get an abortion.
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