Then they need educate themselves on the issue and not listen to Ron Reagan's foolishness...
Origins of the Current Policy
In accordance with the "Dickey Amendment," passed each year since 1995, research involving the destruction of human embryos cannot be funded with taxpayer dollars. This is not Bush's policy; it is the law of the land, passed annually by Congress and signed by both Presidents Clinton and Bush. This law does not ban embryo research, and it does not fund embryo research. It is a policy of public silence.
In 2000, the Clinton administration discovered a loophole that would allow the NIH to provide some federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research without asking Congress to overturn the Dickey amendment. By law, the government could not fund research "in which" embryos were destroyed. But if the destruction itself were funded privately, the government could offer funds for subsequent research on embryonic-stem-cell lines derived from the destroyed embryos. In other words: A researcher could destroy endless numbers of embryos in his private lab, and then use the fruits of such destruction to get public funding. This would not violate the letter of the law, but surely the spirit.
When he took office in 2001, President Bush put implementation of the Clinton guidelines on hold. He wanted a way to support potentially promising research, but he also did not believe the federal government should create an ongoing incentive for the destruction of human embryos. On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced his new guidelines: federal funding for research using stem-cell lines that existed before the announcement, but not for those created after. In this way, federal money would not act as an incentive for destroying human embryos in the future, but stem cells derived from embryos already destroyed in the past could be used with federal money to explore the basic science.
This was the fundamental bargain of the policy: no limits on embryonic-stem-cell research in the private sector (unlike much of the world, which regulates this practice), but no public subsidies to encourage a limitless industry of embryo destruction.
At a May 11 hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Aging, for example, Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease expert Peter Rabins and Washington University Alzheimer's researcher John Morris both told the senators that they do not expect embryonic stem cells to play a role in Alzheimer's treatment. Experts on other diseases speak with similar restraint. In the end, the research may bear therapeutic fruit and it may not — we cannot know in advance. It may cure some diseases and not others. But by seeming to promise medical salvation without limits, stem-cell advocates risk blurring the difficult ethical questions that surround this new science.
Inflated Promise, Distorted Facts
Though embryonic stem cell research advocates euphemistically refer to the current state of research as an "early stage," the unfortunate reality is the goal of embryonic stem cell therapies is, at this point, more accurately described as a pipe dream. No researcher is anywhere close to significant progress in developing practical embryonic stem cell therapies.
The only thing certain is that the cost of that research will be high. If embryonic stem cell research had real and imminent possibilities, private investors would be pouring capital into research hoping for real and imminent profits. Instead, venture capital firms are contributing to political efforts to get taxpayers to fund research. What the venture capitalists seem to be hoping for is that taxpayer funding of stem cell research will increase the value of their stakes in biotech companies. The venture capitalists can then cash out at a hefty profit, leaving taxpayers holding the bag of fruitless research.
Ron Reagan Wrong on Stem Cells
"Embryonic stem cells are not going to be the source of a cure for Alzheimer's," Dobson told the capacity crowd. "Are you aware that not one human being anywhere in the world is being treated with embryonic stem cells? There is not a single clinical trial going on anywhere in the world, because (embryonic) stem cells in laboratory animals ... create tumors. Nobody will use them."
By comparison, adult stem cells have shown great promise in the treatment of diseases such as diabetes, Dobson explained. And they do not require the destruction of embryonic human life, since they can be harvested from such sources as umbilical cord blood and bone marrow.
Nobody will use embryonic cells because they are useless.
Problem solved. No legislation required. End of story.