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Bill
Would Overturn Bush’s Stem Cell Policy
Nevada
Representatives Gibbons, Porter and Berkley Concur
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2005
The
Following Statement Can Be Attributed To Nevada LIFE
President
Don Nelson
198
Congressmen, including Jim Gibbons, Jon Porter and
Shelley Berkley have co-sponsored a bill that would
overturn President Bush’s embryonic stem cell
research (ESCR) policy which bans federal funding of
research on stem cells obtained from embryos killed
after August 9, 2001. H.R. 810 would fund the
research “regardless of the date on which the stem
cells were derived from a human embryo.”
Right
to life objections are well known. The human
embryo possesses inherent dignity as a member of our
species regardless of his or her size, location, level
of development, degree of dependency or the intention
of the embryos parents. It is wrong to kill
innocent human beings. It is wrong to kill them
for research without consent or a possible benefit to
the subject despite the ends to be achieved. The
President instituted the ban on embryo killing because
the human embryo possess inherent dignity.
This
bill also needs to be stopped because ESCR will not
end with embryo killing. Killing the embryo is
gravely wrong, but ESCR will not end there. ESCR
will require cloning to solve tissue rejection
problems and because there will never be enough left
over embryos to provide mass applications for the 125
million sufferers who could benefit. ESCR
applications would require human embryo farms.
Cloning researchers are finding that cloned stem cells
at the embryonic stage probably do not have the power
needed to do what researchers want. That is why
legislators and advocacy groups across the nation are
now asking for laws so that cloned human embryos can
be grown in the womb until those stem cells are
useful. Already in New Jersey, it is legal to
implant a cloned human in the womb and grow him or her
up to the point of birth. During that time,
researchers may use “cadaveric” tissue for
transplantation or research purposes. Only the
birth of the clone is illegal. There’s nothing
to prevent cloning and fetal parts farming in the
United States of America. Certain states allow
it right now.
If
the Congress passes this bill over the president’s
veto, and makes the embryo disposable for research,
there are no grounds upon which we can turn back and
say no to the researcher who says, “just give me a
few more days, or another day, or a few more days more
than the last request” other than personal distaste.
That is no argument at all. There will be no
going back once this line is crossed. These may
not be the reasons that polls show that a majority of
Americans oppose federal funding of embryonic stem
cell research, but it is clear that the public
understands the bio-ethical nightmares at hand.
Every Congressman knows that there are ethical
alternatives to ESCR that are providing powerful
results and that there are no ESCR results.
There are 80 adult stem cell successes. There
are no ESCR successes. The Congress and the
Nevada delegation must vote no on H.R. 810.
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