Re: EDITORIAL : Republicans for Stem Cell Research

[Murray Kastner <murrayka@xxxxxxx>]

I really hope that the Bush Administration reconsiders but I don't hold
out hope as long as the religious fundamentalists hold such heavy
influence, especially with the election coming up. Kinda like the
National Socialist Party of Germany coming out for Bar Mitzvahs...


On May 11, 2004, at 8:44 PM, Linda J Herman wrote:

> 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.
>
>
> LOAD-DATE: May 11, 2004
>
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With warmest regards,

Murray
murrayka@xxxxxxx

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