from: The New York Times
May 11, 2004, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final
Section A; Page 22; Column 1; Editorial Desk
HEADLINE: Republicans for Stem Cell Research
The Bush administration's restrictions on federal funds for embryonic
stem
cell research are so potentially damaging to medicine that they are
encountering
opposition even among the administration's own conservative supporters.
The
latest sign of conservative misgivings came at a fund-raising gala
sponsored by
the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation last Saturday, when Nancy
Reagan made
a public plea for support of stem cell research. Although she did not
specifically criticize the Bush policy, Mrs. Reagan described movingly
how
Alzheimer's had taken her husband "to a distant place where I can no
longer
reach him." She expressed hope that stem cell research might provide new
treatments for many diseases. "I just don't see how we can turn our backs
on
this," she said, adding, "We have lost so much time already, and I just
really
can't bear to lose any more."
If that rebuke from a doyenne of the Republican right was not enough
to give
him pause, President Bush should note that three dozen Republicans,
including
some prominent anti-abortion conservatives, added their names to a recent
letter
from more than 200 House members urging him to relax his restrictions on
supporting stem cell research. What has driven even anguished
conservatives to
back stem cell research is the plight of patients who suffer from
Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, spinal cord injuries and
other
health problems that stem cell research may someday alleviate. Although
many
right-to-lifers consider it immoral to destroy a microscopic embryo in a
petri
dish to extract stem cells, those arguments begin to look abstract when
posed
against the terrible suffering of real-life patients.
Under the Bush policy, federal funds can be used for research only on
embryonic stem cell lines that existed as of Aug. 9, 2001, the date the
policy
was announced. Critics say that only about 15 such lines are currently
available
to researchers, far too few, in their opinion, to allow the field to
advance
quickly. It seems reasonable for Mr. Bush to expand his policy, as the
House
members want, to let federally financed scientists work on stem cell
lines
derived from some of the hundreds of thousands of excess embryos that are
now
held at fertility clinics and are likely to be discarded unless they are
donated
for this potentially valuable research.
http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: May 11, 2004
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