John-Paul Deddens, Students for Life of Illinois

Family Research Council

The Untold Story: Obama Also Rescinds Executive Order for Alternatives to ESCR

Obama's Murderous Executive Order: What Should Science Trump?  (Bishop Thomas Olmsted)

President Barack Obama Deceives Media, Public on Opposition to Human Cloning

Obama's Carefully Crafted Cloning Contradiction (Terence Jeffrey)

Pro-Life Groups: Obama Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research Ignores Science

Destroying Human Embryos Not Only Unethical, but Unnecessary: Congressmen

Former Head of NIH: Embryonic Stem Cell Research Prospects Diminished Now
--  Why Embryonic Stem Cells Are Obsolete  (Bernadine Healy, M.D.)   
               --  IPS Cells, An Embryonic Stem Cell Research Alternative, Make Major Advance

John-Paul Deddens, Executive Director of Students for Life of Illinois Responds to Expansion of Federal Funds for Research Destroying Human Embryos

It is outrageous that President Obama has chosen to expand taxpayer funding for scientific research that will take the lives thousands of living human embryos. While at the earliest stages of life, these embryos truly are human beings. Most standard embryology text books agree that life begins at fertilization, whether fertilization occurs naturally within the woman's body or in a laboratory though artificial reproductive technologies. “The time of fertilization marks the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” (Patten's Foundations of Embyology; Bruce M. Carlson.)

The promise of embryonic stem cell research is currently in serious question because there have been, to date, no successful treatments or cures using cells taken from human embryos. The media often fails to make the proper distinction between embryonic stem cell research, which has no record of success and violates ethical standards, and adult stem cell research, which has provided many treatments. Using adult stem cells and stem cells found in umbilical cord blood--which do not destroy human life--holds more promise for progress in both research and treatments.

Furthermore, within the past year important developments have occurred in reprogramming adult stem cells to take on pluripotent qualities. These cells take on the qualities of embryonic stem cells without the ethical baggage. Why spend taxpayer money to destroy human life when it is unnecessary at every level? 

Funding embryonic stem cell research is terrible public policy and poor appropriation of funds at a time when our nation's economy is suffering greatly. Why pump money into research that is so speculative? This funding is of great concern, for not only does it facilitate the destruction of human life, but it could lead to coercion among the students we know and work with on a daily basis. When research done at universities across Illinois is not held to the highest ethical standards, the education and training of young women and men is compromised. Expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research enables unethical education of university students, misappropriation of severely limited public funds and the death of human beings for the sake of unavailing scientific research.

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Illinois Citizen for Life joins with hundreds of other pro-life and pro-family organizations in decrying the Executive Order of President Barack Obama to permit the destruction of embryonic stem cells for use in experimentation on human life at its very beginning stages.   In a seeming display of lack of concern for true science the President also rescinded the 2007 Executive Order 13435 of President Bush that funded alternative sources of stem cells.  Although this order in no way limited experimentation on the current line of embryonic stem cells at the time and in reality has led to many successes in the use of adult stem cells. There appears to be no reason to stop this funding at this time except for political reasons. Also,  his rejection of human cloning leaves the door wide open for “therapeutic” cloning.  Which means you create a clone and then kill it within fourteen days for its stem cells.

Public opinion polls on this issue are all but worthless because the public has been deceived for years as this issue has been politicized and played out in the media.  Most people are unaware that embryonic stem cell research has been legal and has been conducted for more than twenty years.  President Bush took a moderate position in a country that is deeply divided on this issue.  He permitted the use of stem cell lines that were already in existence and therefore the embryos had already been killed.  In 2001 he refused to permit federal funds for the further destruction of any embryos.   

In over twenty years of experimentation with embryonic stem cells there has not been one cure in any human being.  In reality, embryonic stem cells cause tumors in the subject and are very hard to control.  On the other hand, there have been remarkable cures and progress in treating over seventy diseases and conditions using adult stem cells.  These are obtained by procuring stem cells from placentas, bone marrow, baby teeth pulp, the patient’s own skin cells, etc.  The possibilities are endless.  The greatest benefit is that the donor of these stem cells is in no way harmed while with embryonic stem cells the donor is killed.

Embryonic stem cell research is already outmoded technology because there have been such great advances in obtaining stem cells from alternative sources and being able to manipulate them to produce an embryonic like cell without the problem of the body rejecting it.  When you see famous actors and other celebrities testifying before Congress, pleading for the funding of this ESC research please recognize that they have been the victims of a cruel hoax.  The reason that the National Institute of Health is seeking public funding is because venture capitalists are finding this to be a very unproductive investment.  Instead, in this time of dire economic crisis, we are now going to throw millions of our tax dollars at this experimentation. Someone is going to be making billions of dollars on this research. That money could at least be diverted to the adult stem cell research that is actually producing results. Every human being began life as an embryo.  If you wish to share your thoughts with the President on this issue you can contact him at www.whitehouse.gov/contact.

Washington Update    March 10, 2009

Obama's Bad Science Bailout

Yesterday's Executive Order may not have surprised conservatives, but it certainly shocked the Left. Although most of the country expected President Obama to make good on his promise to reverse the federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, the final order turned out to be far more extreme than ESC's biggest proponents had hoped. Most believed the President would maintain some semblance of restraint and allow experimentation only on those embryos discarded by fertility clinics. Unfortunately, no such limits exist. The President not only cracked ajar the door to ethically-challenged research, he flung it wide open--leaving the very scientists who demanded this money potentially in charge of its limitations.

Under the President's directive, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), unless Congress intervenes, will determine what, if any, boundaries there might be on how we obtain these embryos. With no clear policy from the White House, you and I could be footing the bill for research that clones embryos just to scavenge their parts.

If that's the case, our policy will condone the creation of life for the sole purpose of experimenting on it. Ronald M. Green, a Dartmouth College bioethicist, said, "There are lot of people on the left and the right sides of our political spectrum who are opposed to that--to create a life to destroy it."

President Obama justified the idea yesterday, saying, "As a person of faith, I believe we are called to... work to ease human suffering." But killing to cure doesn't make murder more acceptable, just like giving stolen goods to the church doesn't justify larceny. As Yuval Levin, the former executive director of President Bush's Council on Bioethics writes in today's Washington Post, "In science policy, science informs--but politics governs, and rightly so."

By shielding this research from any public or congressional scrutiny, the President may as well tear up his social contract with the American people. When we're talking about human life and taxpayer dollars, voters have a right to know who's going to monitor the scientists. The appetite for this research may be insatiable, but as Levin says, "[Science]... is no substitute for wisdom, prudence, or democracy."

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) disagrees. A longtime proponent of unethical research, DeGette urged Congress to make Obama's executive order permanent. "Congress must quickly pass complementary legislation so that no future anti-science administration will be able to hinder progress... Congress absolutely must not delay in codifying the directive to prevent science from being subject to the whim of politics." Here is the first of what we expect to be many fierce attacks on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment--the only policy remaining that protects taxpayers from directly funding the destruction of human embryos. Please help us keep this important barrier in place. Contact your Congressmen and urge them to support the Dickey-Wicker and the bipartisan Patients' First Act. Unlike President Obama's order, it promotes science that is not only ethical but effective.

Additional Resources
FRC: Stem Cell Success Stories