More on Stem Cells

Where President Obama would not draw ethical lines, some states have not hesitated. In the wake of the executive order to approve federal funds for embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, three states are refusing to have their convictions steamrolled. Georgia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma are all staging their own protest of the President's decision by passing bills that either ban the funding of ESC or promote real progress through adult stem cells.

In response to Monday's White House ceremony, the Georgia Senate rallied to ban ESC research by a 34-22 vote. Down in Mississippi, State Rep. Tommy Reynolds pushed for a ban on research that destroys the lives of human embryos in the latest budget bill and passed it through the House. Just yesterday, nearby Oklahoma passed a bill 99-0 that would direct more than $1 million toward the real progress of adult stem cells.

This week's good news was multiplied by the announcement of the miraculous spinal cord treatment out in California at DaVinci Biosciences where researchers successfully treated patients with their own bone marrow stem cells. "It is important to note that all of our patients with acute injuries improved significantly with no signs of deterioration..." said team leader Dr. Francisco Silva. Those results should make the administration's investment in expensive embryonic failures all the more scandalous. As Charles Krauthammer points out in today's Washington Post, even he, as a supporter of ESC research, couldn't stomach the President's "morally unserious" explanation.

Obama's address was... populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the 'false choice between sound science and moral values.'... Is he so obtuse as not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science? ...Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others are not. This is not just intellectual laziness. It is...moral arrogance. ...Dr. James Thompson, the pioneer of embryonic stem cells, said 'if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.' Obama clearly has not. (frc.org)