CGS-authored
As the Senate prepares to take up stem cell legislation this week, Congress and the president are at odds over a tangled question at the boundary of science, ethics, and religion. President Bush has restricted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and last year cast the first veto of his presidency when Congress tried to ease the restriction. With majorities in both houses of Congress ready to try again, the president has threatened another veto.
The main arguments are by now familiar. Proponents argue that embryonic stem cell research holds great promise for understanding and curing diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, and other debilitating conditions. Opponents argue that the research is unethical, because deriving the stem cells destroys the blastocyst, an unimplanted human embryo at the sixth to eighth day of development. As Bush declared when he vetoed last year's stem cell bill, the federal government should not support "the taking of innocent human life."
It is surprising that, despite the extensive public debate -- in Congress, during the 2004 and 2006 election campaigns, and on the Sunday...