BS.
It was the Bush Administration who first BEGAN the federal funding of stem cell research.
That some believe their "do as I say, not as I do" moralizing to be legitimate speaks volumes.
I don't believe that EITHER of these comments is correct
The Bush administration IS NOT opposed to funding stem cell research. It is opposed to funding stem cell research based on embryonic stem cells
It is IN FAVOR of funding research that is based on ADULT stem cells, around which there are no moral issues.
The Bush admin did not BEGIN the funding of either type of stem cell research - federal funding of a wide variety of stem cell programs (adult and embryonic) has been going on for almost two decades.
Interestingly, in almost 20 years of research that has been done with stem cells, it is work that involves ADULT stem cells, rather than embryonic, that has shown success and promise.
As already noted, the Bush administration favors adult stem cell research
With respect to embtyonic stem cells, what the Bush administration did do was allow continued funding for a small number of already existing research programs involving a number of already existing lines of embyonic stem cell lines that had already been active for years, while denying funding for any additional new research projects involving ebryonic stem cells or funding for the establishment of any additional lines of stem cells that were embryonic in origin.
First, the "Killed By" date in President Bush's groundbreaking decision to "compromise" by copping Clinton's EXACT pitch on federal embryonic stem cell research is not quite the 60-line limit so many assumed would hold.
78 Lives, er, Lines and Counting ... Latest Additions to the NIH's Stem Cell Registry ^
Second, if you read through that last link, you will notice that Bush also DOUBLED the budget of the NIH whose primary purpose is to funnel that budget right out the door and into the pockets of exactly the "private concerns" who supplied the President with his already-been-killed, excess manufacture human lives. Before you pontificate on what the Bush Administration does and does not support in the way of ESCR, I suggest you follow the money trail they've laid.
Third, in the wake of the Bush "compromise" on ESCR, two interesting things happened. A new definition of Non-Personhood (inimitably suitable for the manufacturing of human life as a cash crop) was entered into the Congressional Record and the NIH withdrew all of its contested guidelines for "human research" because -- thanks to the newly minted definition of Non-Personhood effected by Bush -- the embryos on which they were experimenting and which they were sacrificing no longer fell under the definition "human" experimentation.
And Fourth ... how anyone can speak of Bush's "limited" ESCR program (to which he intends to bribe the Best and the Brightest of the stem cell researchers in order to make the horror show ESCR every bit as productive as adult stem cell research has been) and maintain that his federal project in no way legitimizes or (if successful) will promote the manufacture and utilitarian destruction of human embryos is beyond me.
Seriously ... if you would be so kind, I'd love for you to explain to me how it is a President who's taken the incredible step of funding an ESCR project, appointing as Director of the NIH a man who made his bones at Johns-Hopkins in profit-oriented biotech and doubling the budget of the NIH who funds the academics and "private" concerns who supplied him with embryos in the first place can somehow pretend he's against the utilitarian manufacture and destruction of human lives.
Is he banking on his Hopeful Humanitarian project's being a total failure? Or -- as he promised -- is he going to see it through, attract the Best and the Brightest and support it until it hits Paydirt?