by Rusty Pugh and Jody Brown
(AgapePress) – The head of the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council says Republican leaders have taken a stand regarding the killing of human beings for medical research.
Richard Lessner, director of American Renewal, says three of the top leaders of the House have written an urgent letter to President Bush opposing embryonic stem cell research. Lessner says he applauds Dick Armey and Tom DeLay of Texas and J.C. Watts of Oklahoma for appealing to the President not to give in to the “industry of death.”
“It's very gratifying that these leaders have taken the initiative to speak to the President very forcefully on this issue,” he says, “and to assert the moral position that experimenting on human beings at any stage of development, even as embryos, is unacceptable and represents a moral threshold that we dare not cross.”
Lessner says what his group is seeking from President Bush is an unequivocal rule barring any federal funding for research involving the destruction of human embryos — something the Clinton Administration refused to do. “The previous administration, of course, used ambiguous language to get around the current ban on federal funding for this sort of research,” he says. Lessner also says press reports seek to minimize the humanity of these embryonic children by referring them as “days-old embryos.”
Another pro-family group says the President would be breaking both the law and his promise if he sanctions federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Concerned Women for America notes that then-candidate George W. Bush stated on a questionnaire his opposition to the use of federal money to perform fetal tissue research from induced abortions, and that he believed taxpayer funds “should not underwrite research that involves the destruction of live human embryos.”
The President reiterated his stance in May when he said he opposed funding for such research and supported “innovative medical research,” including research on stem cells from adult tissue.
CWFA spokesperson Wendy Wright cites a law enacted by Congress in 1996 that prevents federal funding of human embryo research. Of reports circulating that Bush may compromise on the issue, Wright says, “Breaking laws and promises would be Clintonesque.” She adds that the claim the embryos would be destroyed anyway ignores the couples who are willing to adopt them, and that researchers admit they would have to create or clone many more embryos than are currently awaiting a home.
Cloning Problems
Meanwhile, a report today says a new study has found serious genetic abnormalities in mice cloned through the use of embryonic stem cells. Associated Press reports the problems are a sign that cloning technology has more rough edges than had been thought. The lead researcher of the group at the Whitehead Institute in Massachusetts says although many of the cloned mice looked normal, there is evidence that the genes did not work properly in making proteins.
The researcher says that indicates it would be “really dangerous” to clone humans. He says there is no telling what physical or mental abnormalities could result.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
