Reading Frist's comments, I think the media took what he said out of context. Frist believes in limiting the stem-cell lines that may receive federal funding for research, although he does draw the line in a different place than did the President. But where he drew the line makes all the difference.
I find Frist's approach appealing on many levels, but ultimately must reject it. Even if he is correct that the embryos in question will never be implanted in the womb and will surely be destroyed, and even if a process is put in place that eliminated any possibility of fertility doctors getting compensated for providing discarded embryos to research facilities (which would give fertility doctors an incentive to recommend to women seeking in-vitro fertilization that they have even more eggs fertilized than the high number that are currently fertilized under IVF), and even if the mother and father of the embryo had to consent to its destruction in the name of research and were never paid a dime for their consent, it would still be the intentional taking of an innocent human life.
As a society that purports to live by Judeo-Christian ethics, we do not carry out potentially fatal medical experiments on death-row inmates, even though they will surely die anyhow, and getting the informed consent of the inmate's parents wouldn't make it any less unethical. For the same reason, I don't think we should intentionally kill an innocent human being in the name of scientific research. Senator Frist mentioned several promising areas of stem-cell research that do not require the destruction of embryos, and we should concentrate our efforts on those areas. If Frist is correct in that scientists believe that adult stem cells may be "reprogrammed" to become "pluripotent" and thus able to become any kind of human cell, this is an approach that should be encouraged, but if researchers can use embyonic stem cells that do not require any "reprogramming" (and are thus cheaper), no one will spend a dime on developing the technology required to make adult stem cells pluripotent.
The taxpayer funding is also very problematic when you consider how many people do not want their taxes used for this particular research; why not put it to a vote, at the very least?! Which reminds me...I wonder how the state-funded embryo research in Kalifornia is coming along?