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Pres. Bush’s Announcement About ‘Stem Cells’ Has Nothing to do With Cloning The dramatic announcement
by Pres. Bush this month about “stem cells” has nothing to do with
cloning. The President was talking
about the “stem cells” that came from embryos at fertility clinics.
Those embryos are left over from women who were unable to conceive
a child and had some of their eggs removed and then fertilized at
the clinics. Several of those fertile eggs are always frozen in
case the first one doesn’t survive. The President announced that
the federal government will fund research from the use of the stem
cells from fertility clinics but only from those embryos which have
already been destroyed. Private companies are not forbidden from
destroying more embryos and using them for research, but they must
pay for the research themselves. It will not be funded by the federal
government. The President has named Prof.
Leon Kass, an anti-cloning bioethicist from the University of Chicago
to chair a new commission overseeing the federally funded research. The President remains opposed to all human cloning for any purpose, including the production of “stem cells.” |
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