Free Republic

Stem Cells, Life, and the LawA federal court steps into the debate. Monday’s decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia halting all federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research is a surprising milestone in the decade-long debate over this morally fraught field — and another opportunity to make the case that medical research must proceed hand-in-hand with respect for life and human dignity. First, a little background. Human embryonic stem cells, which many scientists hope will someday lead to new therapies for a range of diseases, can be obtained only through the destruction of human embryos. But...

President Barack Obama signed a law that explicitly bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death” only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the killing of new human embryos. The law banning any federal funding of research that kills or risks injury to embryos was included in the language of the $410-billion omnibus appropriation bill that President Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, the language has been included in...