Obama Signing Stem Cell Order Today

On Friday, the White House announced that President Obama will sign an executive order on stem cell research later today. While declining to give details, the administration signaled that it would mark the end of the Bush regime's ban on almost all federal funding for stem cell research. The move is part of an effort by the new crew to restore scientific integrity to many government processes that became politicized in the last 8 years.

The governing legislation, the Dickey Amendment, will not change. It essentially forbids using federal funds to create or destroy human embryos for research. Constitutionally, changing that would require an Act of Congress or a Supreme Court finding that it is unconstitutional. The latter is unlikely, and the former would give the Republicans an issue about values over which to fight. The Obama White House doesn't want that.

Instead, Mr. Obama will probably turn the clock back to 1998, shortly after biologists discovered human embryonic stems cells. Then, the Department of Health and Human Services determined that the Dickey Amendment didn't apply to human stem cell research. In August 2001, President Bush overturned that ruling and limited federal funds to use on lines (or batches) that existed in labs at the time.

Why will this change matter? First of all, the federal government is the source for most scientific funding the the US. Pure research is what government can do better than the private sector. There's no money in pure research, only in practical application. The private sector didn't send men to the moon, but it has done pretty well out of launching satellites based on that moonshot technology.

Secondly, what stem cell research has occurred since 2001 (much of it outside the US) has shown incredible promise in the treatment for scores of heretofore untreatable maladies. People with such diseases have organized politically, and they have had no small influence on the last couple of elections. Even some anti-abortion rights activists have seen that stem cells from fertility clinic embryos pass their pro-life test because these embryos would otherwise be discarded.

Third, the order is important because it offers US researchers an opportunity to get back into the game. If economic growth in the 21st century is founded upon technological innovation, limiting research in biology in the way Mr. Bush did undermines the position of the US as a leading economic power.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Kensington Review Home