Quick Links Home Abortion  Stem Cell Research & Cloning Partial Birth Abortion  Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia		Press Release   Bush Stem Cell Policy Benefitted Science, Sufferers, Nation Obama To Bailout Unproductive Embryo Destructive Research While Alternatives Soar. Nation/Science Benefitted As Bush Policy Spurred Stem Cell Sources, New Treatments.  Embryonic Stem Cell Research Leads To Cloning, Human Animal Hybrids, Exploitation FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 9, 2009 The following statement can be attributed to Nevada LIFE President Don Nelson President Obama will announce today that he is lifting the Bush Embryonic Stem Cell Policy.  The Bush policy funded research on embryonic stem cell lines existing before August 2001.  This is a biotech bailout and is not worth the harm it will bring.  Embryonic stem cell research is wrong because it kills human beings and treats human life as a commodity and a raw resource.  It’s also wrong because it leads to cloning, human-animal hybrids, the exploitation of women for their eggs and more.  Embryonic stem cell research will lead to this bioethical nightmare because even if scientists used the embryos available in fertility labs, they would not bring the genetic diversity necessary for mass cures. Human cloning to create embryos for stem cells (the technique use to create Dolly the Sheep) would be necessary to overcome tissue rejection and produce patient specific matches.  Cloning is expensive and mass cures will require vast numbers of human eggs, leading to exploitation of women.  The dearth of eggs has led using animal eggs and cloned human-animal hybrids for ESCR.  Once cloning for embryos begins, cloning for reproduction will follow.  Is this what Obama means by “sound science?”  Embryonic stem cell research is also not necessary because the Bush policy bought time for alternative stem cells sources and research to be discovered.  In 2007 scientists discovered a way to reprogram ordinary cells back to an embryonic like state.  These stem cells are the equivalent of embryonic stem cells except that they do not kill human embryos, require human cloning, or exploitive egg extraction.  They are cheaper, easier to work, more efficient and don’t pose rejection problems since they are the patient’s stem cells.  Dolly the Sheep cloner Ian Wilmut says this discovery is the greatest discovery since the double helix structure of DNA.  Bush funded this research when Obama, Reid and Congress would not.  Other stem cells like amniotic fluid cells and stem cells from umbilical cord blood have similar properties and are achieving results.  Had Bush yielded, ESCR may have consumed the funds and energy that led to these finds and kept scientists from looking elsewhere. In 2007 Obama said the Bush policy was "deferring the hopes of millions of Americans who do not have the time to keep waiting for the cure that may save or extend their lives." While over $2 billion has been spent on ESCR with no human benefits, non-ESCR has flourished and provides hope for millions.  There are over 70 human benefits and well over 1000 trials.  Recent benefits include reversal of MS and Parkinson’s symptoms, removal of diabetics from insulin, improvement for patients with autoimmune and cardiac diseases, etc. These are treatments ESCR researchers promised but haven’t delivered.  The Bush policy shows ethical science is good science and good for everyone. -30-