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Executive Order on Embryonic Stem Cells 'A Sad Victory of Politics over Science and Ethics,' Says Cardinal Rigali
WASHINGTON—Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, today called President Obama's executive order on embryonic stem cell research "a sad victory of politics over science and ethics." Under the order, for the first time in U.S. history, federal tax dollars will be used to encourage researchers to destroy live human embryos for stem cell research. Cardinal Rigali also cited a January 16 letter in which Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, urged President-elect Obama not to issue such an order. Cardinal Rigali's statement follows:
"President Obama's new executive order on embryonic stem cell research is a sad victory of politics over science and ethics. This action is morally wrong because it encourages the destruction of innocent human life, treating vulnerable human beings as mere products to be harvested. It also disregards the values of millions of American taxpayers who oppose research that requires taking human life. Finally, it ignores the fact that ethically sound means for advancing stem cell science and medical treatments are readily available and in need of increased support.
"In his January 16th letter to President-elect Obama, Cardinal George, writing as President of the USCCB, cited three reasons why such destructive research is 'especially pointless at this time':
- 'First, basic research in the capabilities of embryonic stem cells can be and is being pursued using the currently eligible cell lines as well as the hundreds of lines produced with nonfederal funds since 2001.
- 'Second, recent startling advances in reprogramming adult cells into embryonic-like stem cells – hailed by the journal Science as the scientific breakthrough of the year – are said by many scientists to be making embryonic stem cells irrelevant to medical progress.
- 'Third, adult and cord blood stem cells are now known to have great versatility, and are increasingly being used to reverse serious illnesses and even help rebuild damaged organs. To divert scarce funds away from these promising avenues for research and treatment toward the avenue that is most morally controversial as well as most medically speculative would be a sad victory of politics over science.'
"If the government wants to invest in hope for cures and promote ethically sound science, it should use our tax monies for research that everyone, at every stage of human development, can live with."
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 9, 2009
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
REMOVING BARRIERS TO RESPONSIBLE SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN STEM CELLS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Research involving human embryonic stem cells and human non-embryonic stem cells has the potential to lead to better understanding and treatment of many disabling diseases and conditions. Advances over the past decade in this promising scientific field have been encouraging, leading to broad agreement in the scientific community that the research should be supported by Federal funds.
For the past 8 years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential actions. The purpose of this order is to remove these limitations on scientific inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell research, and in so doing to enhance the contribution of America's scientists to important new discoveries and new therapies for the benefit of humankind.
Sec. 2. Research. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of NIH, may support and conduct responsible, scientifically worthy human stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, to the extent permitted by law.
Sec. 3. Guidance. Within 120 days from the date of this order, the Secretary, through the Director of NIH, shall review existing NIH guidance and other widely recognized guidelines on human stem cell research, including provisions establishing appropriate safeguards, and issue new NIH guidance on such research that is consistent with this order. The Secretary, through NIH, shall review and update such guidance periodically, as appropriate.
Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity, by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 5. Revocations. (a) The Presidential statement of August 9, 2001, limiting Federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, shall have no further effect as a statement of governmental policy.
(b) Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007, which supplements the August 9, 2001, statement on human embryonic stem cell research, is revoked.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 9, 2009.
Behind Obama's Decision to Sign an Executive Order to Allow Federal Funding of Research that Will Require The Killing of Human Embryos
By Dave Andrusko
Editor's note. Be sure also to post this TN&V on your social networking pages by going to www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/nv030909.html and clicking on the "Share" button.
"Regarding Obama's instructions to NIH to develop 'strict guidelines' to govern embryonic stem cell research, NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson commented, 'These so-called ethical safeguards are really merely procedural requirements, an attempt to cloak the fundamentally unethical act of sacrificing living members of our species, homo sapiens, in order to provide raw material for research.'...
"Obama also issued a second directive purporting to free federally sponsored scientific research from the influence of 'ideology.' Johnson commented, 'Giving an absolutely free hand to elites of specialists can result in the ideology of the specialists being imposed on society as a whole. Scientific endeavors that utilize human subjects or otherwise pose dangers to innocent human life must always be subject to oversight by society as a whole, through regular democratic processes.'"
--From a NRLC press release, commenting on President Barack Obama's decision today to reverse a policy instituted by former President George W. Bush in August 2001, which funded research only on already-existing stem cell lines and not on research that would require the destruction of human life.
In the infamous words of terminally smug pro-abortion Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, "We won. We run things now." Well, yes and no, and maybe for a lot shorter period of time than the San Francisco Democrat believes.
Most of our TN&V readers are aware that earlier today Mr. Middle of the Road, aka pro-abortion President Barack Obama, overturned the carefully crafted policy on embryonic stem cells instituted by pro-life President George W. Bush--"the latest reversal of his predecessor's policies," as the Associated Press's Philip Elliott put it succinctly this morning. For good measure--and cover--Obama also promulgated a "presidential memorandum" that promises to make research on human embryos using federal dollars squeaky clean. Let's look a moment to examine what's really going on.
Just as overturning the Mexico City Policy opened the financial spigot to anti-life organizations, Obama has now invited researchers to apply for federal dollars to conduct research on human embryos. And just as was the case January 23 when Obama gutted the Mexico City Policy, very few news accounts talked about the real agenda of today's action. Interesting enough, that is not true of the New York Times. (See below.)
As always, the Obama team steeps its actions as an attempt to get beyond the "old politics." Indeed, we are supposed to believe that the presidential memorandum he issued isn't really just to grease the skids to kill human embryos, but is to "assure a number of effective standards and practices that will help our society feel that we have the highest-quality individuals carrying out scientific jobs and that information is shared with the public," as Harold Varmus, who co-chairs Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, told reporters in a conference phone call yesterday.
Right.
Three quick thoughts.
#1. Obama is going to leave the heavy lifting to Congress--that is, determining "whether the long-standing legislative ban on federal financing for human embryo experiments should also be overturned." The reference is to the Dickey-Wicker law, which since 1995 has been a provision of the annual appropriations bills for federal health programs. This law prohibits the use of federal tax dollars to create human embryos, or research in which human embryos "are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." Only Congress can overturn the amendment.
#2. Contrary to the impression left, nothing in what Obama said today limits NIH to the use of stem cells scavenged from so-called "spare embryos" created in IVF clinics. Why is this important? Because many researchers never did focus on (or have long since stopped caring about) what is in fact the relatively small number of human embryos parents are willing to have experimented on. They are eager to create human embryos, by cloning and other methods. Any legislator who votes to repeal the Dickey-Wicker amendment can rightly be described as opening the door to the creation of human embryo farms.
#3. The aforementioned New York Times, in an article today written by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, goes into detail about the prospects of overturning the Dickey-Wicker amendment: "[P]eople on both sides of the stem cell debate say Mr. Obama's announcement could lead to a reconsideration of the ban on Capitol Hill, an idea so controversial and fraught with ethical implications that the mere discussion of it would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, when President George W. Bush was in office."
Many stories, of course, either totally ignored the stunning breakthroughs using sources other than human embryos and/or ignored the well-documented dangers inherent in using embryonic stem cells. One exception came from former NIH head Dr. Bernadette Healy, no pro-lifer, by the way.
"Even for strong backers of embryonic stem cell research, the decision is no longer as self-evident as it was, because there is markedly diminished need for expanding these cell lines for either patient therapy or basic research," she wrote. "In fact, during the first six weeks of Obama's term, several events reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes, are obsolete."
The one thing we can count on is that the anti-life crowd will continue to push and push and push. We will keep you up to date on all aspects of this action in the days and weeks to come.
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