Praise for Obama's Embryonic Stem Cell Decision From a Pro-Life Republican Mother
By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
President Obama today signed an executive order reversing the Bush administration's ban on new stem cell lines. Previously, President Bush restricted the use of federal funding for embryonic stem cells, except for those stem cell lines already in existence in August of 2001, when he announced his policy. Already, former first lady Nancy Reagan has praised President Obama's reversal of that. According to Politico, "Her statement also illustrates how support for the research crosses party lines, even though many in the anti-abortion movement strongly oppose the research on moral and ethical grounds."
I've written before about my support for stem-cell research as a pro-life Republican, and I'm glad Mrs. Reagan reacted so quickly and positively.
According to press reports, President Obama's actions today clear the way for a big increase in federal funding for stem cell research. As you can imagine, federal funding for this under the Bush administration was nonexistent; some states, such as California, funded it using state funds after a ballot initiative a few years back. I've spoken with scientists working on a cure for Type I diabetes, and they've told me that many good researchers have stayed away from working in U.S. labs because of the vagaries of funding levels and political controversy associated with their work. It's a more stable research environment, from their point of view, to be working in labs where political support for stem cell research is unwavering.
As a parent of a child with Type I diabetes, I can tell you that most other parents do not think that a cure will come from scientists working in the United States. We've been involved for the last eight years (our daughter was diagnosed the same year as Bush's ban, in 2001) with helping to find a cure, and we've seen that American parents fund a tremendous amount of stem-cell research in Israel, Canada and Australia, to name only a few foreign countries.
While I am glad that President Obama reversed the ban today—and I'm sure the 100 million Americans who could be eventually be cured of Alzheimer's, spinal cord injuries and auto-immune diseases like Type I agree—I'm not sure how much of an effect it will have on American research projects. Much of the best work is already coming from overseas. The question is, will increased funding be enough to lure the best and the brightest researchers into working in the United States?
Let's hope so. As Mrs. Reagan put it, "Time is short, and life is precious."
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Reader Comments
What?
Ms. Cary,
What if I were to say to you that by killing your son and using his body for research, it MAY possibly save the lives of people, or at least help them to have a better "quality of life" (whatever that means). Would you be open to that? Of course you wouldn't. Destroying human life, and the undeniable fact is that it is a human life is simply wrong, no matter what the outcome may be. You claim to be "pro-life", but that baffles me. When does your support for the unborn begin then? At 1 week, 4 weeks? 9 months? If it is 1 week, then what magically happens at exactly 6 days 23 hours 59 minutes, 59 seconds? Are you pro-life when there are 10 cells, or 50 cells, or 1000 cells? then what magically happens when there are only 998 cells?
If anyone has studied anything about the Nazi experimentations on humans and their arguments for doing so, they would be down right shocked at the endless parallels of the arguments made FOR embryonic stem cell research.
Open your eyes, see the truth for what it is. It will always be the truth, no matter if you believe in it or not.
Pro Life
How can people honestly say destroying an embryo is pro life? And then they hit us with "They are not fertilized." Where is the proof? How long until scientists want to use fertilized embryos? This is wrong and I am 100% against it!
Facts
With all due respect to the Jedi Master, I'm not sure how the scientific information in the article he linked is somehow supposed to convince people that destroying human embryos is perfectly ethical (assuming that was the intent).
As the mother of a son with a life-threatening illness I've found myself in conversation with very nice, very intelligent people who ask about any potential therapies or hopes for a cure. When I say that I hope someday there will be some kind of adult stem cell or cord blood therapy that will help him, they say, something to the effect of "now with the new administration there's a chance..." etc. I inform them that the Bush administration was very much in favor of adult stem cell research (and obviously cord blood therapies) but that he was opposed to FEDERAL FUNDING of EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH (which he also personally believed was morally wrong. So what? With Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton it's a moot point what he personally believed. That didn't [and still doesn't] stop our country from aborting nearly 4000 humans every day.)
Embryonic stem cell research has NOT been illegal and one might wonder why a state like California is going to end up spending 6 BILLION dollars on embryonic stem cell research when all is said and done. The propopsition passed by voters here states that the funding will go to areas of research that are underfunded. Read: embryonic stem cell research. Underfunded because those pouring money into stem cell research here know that the successes and breakthroughs lie with adult stem cells (not to mention the freedom from ethical and moral constraints). If embryonic stem cells were as promising as those trying to get their hands on the money say then they should have had people banging down their door to GIVE them the money as opposed to having us taxpayers foot the enormous bill.
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