U.S. President Barack Obama’s lifting of restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research puts him at odds with Pope Benedict and the American Roman Catholic Church.
After Obama signed the order on Monday, the Vatican and U.S. and Italian Church leaders condemned the move. One commentator said the test of “a real democracy” was its defence of the most defenceless.
Obama’s executive order reversed and repudiated restrictions placed on the research by his predecessor, George W. Bush, freeing labs across the country to start working with the cells, which can give rise to any kind of cell in the body.
Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on pro-life activities, called Obama’s decision “a sad victory of politics over science and ethics.”
hmph.. seems there are a LOT of things that put Obama at odds with the Pope.
…And with the American people and constitution.
Things like [url=http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5375029/vatican-defends-brazil-excommunication/]this[/url]—which seem far more sinister than stem cell research—put the Pope at odds with me and, I hope, millions of other Christians.
Not surprisingly, there is plenty of spin in this news piece as there often is when the issue of stem cell research comes up. Fact number one is that the issue here is not stem cell research but embryonic stem cell research. The research that requires actually joining sperm and egg and then destroying it is what is at issue here. Fact number two is that Bush never banned stem cell research. In fact he never banned embryonic stem cell research, what he did do was keep government dollars (aka tax payer dollars) from going towards this ethically questionable research. There was, however, a great deal of money going towards other kinds of stem cell research which had already shown much more promising results than embryonic stem cell research.
#4, good comments. And as WSJ editorial pointed out yesterday, Obama did nothing but politicize the issue. Bush’s program was one of moderation. Bush allowed government money to be spent on certain types of stem cell research but not on new embryonic stem cells, due to the ethical questions involved. Obama has once again raised a strawman to knock down for the benefit of his followers, and once again the media has failed in its job to report the truth (other than WSJ, of course).