HARTFORD, Connecticut — Republican Governor Jodi Rell of Connecticut has signed legislation which gives $100 million in taxpayer money to stem cell research over a period of ten years. This new state law comes shortly after President George W. Bush put in place restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, citing the severe and insurmountable ethical issues involved in what is essentially the destruction of human life for questionable medical returns.
According to Paul Davis, a state legislator and former science teacher, the Connecticut bill focuses on embryonic stem cell research. The bill provides for $10 million in annual grants to be given to Connecticut’s booming bioscience industry, to be channeled towards this type of research, in the distant hope of finding cures for a number of diseases.
Connecticut is the third state to overcome the federal restriction on funding by passing a bill providing state funding.
“Stem cells hold a huge amount of hope for the future of medicine,” said the governor at the signing. “This is really a day of great promise. I don’t think I can say that enough.”
A single protestor made his presence known, vocally trying to bring the true nature of embryonic stem cell research to the attention of the governor. “Embryos are human. Embryos are alive. You cannot kill human life. I oppose this bill…” shouted the protestor before being led away by the police. “This is a travesty. This is not a happy moment,” he said as he was lead out of the building.
Legislators in favor of the bill claim that it puts in place restrictions which ensure that the research will be conducted in what they call an ethical and moral manner.
“I think that there is no divorcing this bill from some of the moral issues that surround it,” said Sen. Christopher Murphy. “We have been very careful in this bill to make sure that any research conducted in this state, and especially research conducted with state dollars, is going to be done with the full moral and ethical protections that we afford all research.”
In actual fact, all of these restrictions fail to address the true concerns of opponents of embryonic stem cell research and often produce the opposite result from that which they claim to have.
The new law prohibits growing the fertilized embryos past 14 days gestation and implanting them in a woman’s womb. According to the opponents of the bill the practical consequence of what is being called an ethical restriction is the mandatory destruction of human life. The newly created human beings are thus subjected to what is essentially legislated murder in the name of ethics.
Opponents of the bill, including Marie Hillard of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, are also pointing out that it is foolhardy to invest such a substantial amount of money in a type of research which has yielded less than dismal results, with no successful clinical trials to date. Adult stem cell research on the other hand, which does not require the destruction or harming of human life, is a burgeoning source of potential and clinically successful cures.
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
