Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama did more on Monday than just force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research that requires the destruction of human life. He also rescinded an executive order President Bush put into place funding adult stem cells and new research with iPS cells.
Obama also rescinded Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007.
President Bush put that order in place in June 2007 when he vetoed a Congressional measure that would have required embryonic stem cell research funding.
Instead of signing the bill, President Bush issued an executive order to press for more research into ways of obtaining embryonic stem cells without harming human life. The order was intended to ultimately fund research into alternatives" to destructive embryonic stem cell research such as altered nuclear transfer (ANT), "regression" (reverting differentiated cells into stem cells), and other methods.
Bush could be said to have been ahead of his time since regression, also known as direct reprogramming, has taken off and the new induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are the talk of the scientific world.
Bioethcis attorney and watchdog Wesley J. Smith says the Obama decision to also reverse this executive order shows Obama is really the anti-science president, not his predecessor.
"Of course, the Administration didn't have the candor or courage to publicize this part of his nasty work," he said. "But the now dead order explicitly required funding for alternative methods such as the new IPSCs, which offer so much promise without the ethical contentiousness."
"Alternative methods are one of the few areas in which we can all row in the same direction, which I thought this president wanted to do," Smith added.
"I can think of only two reasons for this action, for which I saw no advocacy either in the election or during the first weeks of the Administration," Smith says. "First, vindictiveness against all things 'Bush' or policies considered by the Left to be 'pro-life' and second, a desire to get the public to see unborn human life as a mere corn crop ripe for the harvest."
"So much for taking the politics out of science," he concludes.
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