WASHINGTON (RNS) Christian conservative groups decried new federal guidelines that will increase taxpayer dollars going to embryonic stem cell research.
The guidelines, which took effect Tuesday (July 7) after they were issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), stipulate that federally funded research will be allowed only on excess embryos at fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded.
Embryos cannot be created solely for research, and donors must give “voluntary written consent” to use the embryos for research.
Championed by scientists for their potential to treat and cure a multitude of illnesses, embryonic stem cell research raises concern for those who believe that embryos are nascent forms of human life.
“We have stated it is wrong to kill human beings at any stage of life for experimentation or for research purposes,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Woman for America (CWA), a conservative Christian advocacy group. “But on top of that basic wrong, they’ve added even more problems.”
Wright said the guidelines violate the spirit of the Dickey Amendment, a 1995 federal law that prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding processes that destroy or endanger human embryos.
“The whole world of fertility industry is completely unregulated,” Wright said. “That’s one reason why we have these excess embryos.”
Wright worries these guidelines will give incentives to create more excess embryos because the federal government will fund research on them.
President Obama lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research last March, but left it to the NIH to craft ethical boundaries. These rules come after a lengthy feedback process, in which NIH received more than 49,000 responses.
By Tiffany Stanley
Copyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted July 7, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Pehaps the CWA woman or her family will be saved by what science might be able to do with these cells she is so worried over in the years to come. Of course she could refuse them as the woman who refused the leukemia treatments for her son, and he died because of her fright about using the drugs which could have saved him. She is on trial for his death at this time.
posted July 8, 2009 at 6:08 am
I am unimpressed with the piety of this concern for embryos in the face of the disinterest that these same people routinely show for the needs of living people today.
That said, while I can hope that stem-cell research produces useful new medical approaches to various diseases, it would be a terrible mistake for people to RELY on such hope. We already depend way too much on medical salvation from conditions that could and should have been avoided altogether, which happens in part because people have been conditioned to believe 2 false notions: that they are helpless victims of disease, and that medicine is a world of miracles. We can achieve the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people by emphasizing simple good-health lifestyle. So the intelligent approach here is to allow the research to go on, but not to depend on it and not to be waiting passively for miraculous cures.
posted July 8, 2009 at 8:42 am
Good points, Heretic_For _Christ.
posted July 8, 2009 at 10:13 am
Hope is what makes living livable HfC. Good health habits won’t help you from Parkinson’s disease, AML, and any amount of diseases that stem cells may, I said may, help in the future. But you are right about being intelligent in expectations. Prevention medicine articles abound in books, magazines, and on the net and are a help to anyone who takes time to consider them.
posted July 10, 2009 at 7:15 am
Conservatives are treating the comment period as if it were some kind of referendum on embryonic stem cell research, rather than simply a call for public comment on a proposed set of guidelines. On top of that, Wright is calling for government regulation of a private sector business activity, which flies in the face of her usual opposition to government intervention. There seems to be a double standard in operation here: i.e., that it’s not OK for government to regulate the private sector — unless it’s being done for a purpose that furthers the social/religious conservative agenda.
posted July 13, 2009 at 12:55 am
the specious concern that humanity will be forever scarred by so called unethical research is based on the shallow belief, even as such conservatives try to hide it, that humanity is defined by what is in their DNA rather than what is in their hearts, minds, and actions. the very notion that stem cellsa are people is a tragic misuse of the label of human to fit their dogmatic agenda.