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Posted on 03/02/2007 6:09:23 AM PST by NYer
ALBANY, N.Y. (CNS) – The executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference urged the state Legislature Feb. 28 to ban any form of "taxpayer-financed human cloning" and to reject Gov. Eliot Spitzer's $2.1 billion Stem Cell and Innovation Fund as proposed, with its major emphasis on funding research on human embryonic stem cells.
"The governor's stem-cell research proposal is devoid of any moral consideration whatsoever for the living human embryos who will be subject to experimentation and destruction," said Richard E. Barnes, executive director of the conference, which is the public policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops.
He made the remarks in testimony before a joint meeting of the Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.
Even in practical terms, in light of other unmet human needs in New York "it is simply not the time or the place to be investing billions of dollars in the highly speculative science of embryonic stem-cell research," he said.
The proposed fund calls for spending $100 million in New York's public funds next year and $50 million a year for the next 10 years after that on "stem cells, other life sciences and emerging technologies." In addition it calls for a $1.5 billion bond act, subject to voter approval in 2008, for such research.
"At least one-half of this money would be allocated to stem-cell research under the plan, and both the definitional language and the administration's point person for the venture, Lt. Gov. David Paterson, emphasize a particular focus on embryonic stem-cell research," Barnes said.
He pointed out that while the budget proposal rejects state subsidies for "human reproductive cloning" it leaves open the use of funds for so-called "therapeutic cloning," the creation of cloned human embryos specifically for destruction and harvesting to establish stem-cell lines for research.
The Catholic conference, the public policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops, "views human cloning as an alarming assault on the dignity and value of human life," Barnes said. "Such technology reduces the precious gift of human life to a manufactured product that can be discarded at will."
American public opinion continues to oppose human cloning for both experimental and reproductive purposes, he said.
He urged the Senate and Assembly to adopt identical bills currently under consideration in their respective health committees that would "ensure that any government financing of stem-cell research excludes taxpayer-financed human cloning."
Barnes noted that as a result of research on nonembryonic stem cells "the field of regenerative medicine is growing at an incredible pace. ... Thousands and thousands of patients have benefited from adult stem-cell treatments, patients afflicted with various cancers, autoimmune diseases, anemias and blood disorders, metabolic disorders, wounds and injuries."
On the other hand, he said, "despite decades of research with animal models and almost a full decade of research with human embryos, embryonic stem cells have not produced a single medical benefit."
"Indeed, clinical trials are nowhere in sight, or even almost in sight, and any supposed 'cures' or human transplants from embryonic stem cells are decades away, if ever," he said.
He wondered why the New York government would expect economic benefit from funding such research when, "according to Forbes magazine, the challenges of creating commercial products from embryonic stem cells is so difficult and prohibitively expensive that private investors and most major drug and biotech companies have not invested in it."
"If it is too risky for the private sector, and it's not clear where or when the payoff lies, it should not be acceptable to compel taxpayers to foot the bill, a bill that will only benefit – if there is benefit at all – the well-endowed universities and pharmaceutical companies" who get the state funding for the research.
"Rather remarkably, the ... stem-cell research plan is an entirely ethics-free proposal," Barnes added. He said it has no provision for "an independent bioethics review board to craft ethical guidelines or an independent stem-cell commission to hold researchers accountable to those guidelines."
Barnes also criticized the administration for repeatedly arguing that the fund is needed to make embryonic stem-cell research "legal" in New York.
"Human embryonic stem-cell research is already legal here. ... We wish that were not the case," he said. He said what the bill would do is provide taxpayer funding for such research, not legalize what is already legal and being done with private funding.
Eliot Spitzer, he's a democrat, nuff said? How many Catholics voted for him I wonder?
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