Reactions to Obama's executive
order on stem cell research: 2009-MAR

"Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for experiments that require the destruction of human life.* President Obama's policy change is especially troubling given the significant adult stem cell advances that are being used to treat patients now without harming or destroying human embryos." ₂

After the signing, Perkins stated:

"The action by the president today will, in effect, allow scientists to create their own guidelines without proper moral restraints,"

Perkins may not have been aware of the president's instruction to the National Institutes of Health to develop guidelines for stem cell research.
 

"Republicans enthusiastically support adult, cord blood, and pluripotent stem cell research that have shown so much promise in recent years. The question is whether taxpayer dollars should be used to subsidize the destruction of precious human life.* Millions of Americans strongly oppose that, and rightfully so."

"human embryo experimentation, ... Why does the president persist in the dehumanizing of nascent human life* when better alternatives exist? Human embryo-destroying stem cell research is not only unethical, unworkable and unreliable -- it is now, demonstrably unnecessary." ₃

"If an embryo is a life, and I believe strongly that it is life, then no government has the right to sanction their destruction for research purposes.:

He argued that adult stem cells that do not require killing of human embryos offer as much promise. ₄
 

"... 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." ₅

"The motive for this decision should be seen in the pressure for profits." ₅

"President Obama's order places the worst kind of politics above ethics. Politics driven by hype makes overblown promises, fuels the desperation of the suffering and financially benefits those seeking to strip morality from science." ₈

"Obama opens door [sic] to human embryo farms. It's a sad day when the federal government will fund research that exploits living members of the human species as raw material for research." ₁₀

This is a curious statement, because fertility labs across the U.S. and elsewhere already have "embryo farms" where hundreds of thousands of frozen fertilized embryos are held in storage waiting to be destroyed, allowed to die, or in very rare cases implanted in a womb. Yet there has been little effort made by conservatives to change the labs'  procedures. Stem cell research facilities only have inventories of stem cell lines, no embryos.

"Update the current policy, which has been frozen in place since 2001 and allow broad use of new technologies discovered over the last eight years. ... For 30 million Americans with some form of diabetes, stem cell research offers a possibility to develop new treatments." ₆

"As the entrepreneur who was out there trying to move the industry forward, the Bush policy massively impacted the willingness of investors to put up money. Many of us hope this will spawn the new era of regenerative medicine we?ve been waiting for all these years. What a sigh of relief." ₆

"... President Barack Obama's executive order reversing the eight-year-old ban on federal research funding for stem cell lines created after August 2001."

" 'The federal government has been a critical source of funds for health care research in many areas, and it is unconscionable that progress in stem cell research has been adversely affected for eight years by objections that reflected little more than religious dogma,' said Ronald A. Lindsay, CFI president and CEO. 'We are very pleased that President Obama has decided to support this research that is likely to provide substantial benefit to millions of individuals'."

Lindsay is the author of the 2006 CFI position paper, "Stem Cell Research: An Approach to Bioethics Based on Scientific Naturalism," produced by the Center for Inquiry's Washington D.C. Office of Public Policy to clarify the scientific standing on the ethics of stem cell research.

"... Paul Kurtz, CFI founder and chairman, stressed the significance of opening up access to fresh lines of stem cell for broad, federally funded research. 'If we are going to make significant progress in developing cures and therapies, researchers have to be able to utilize all avenues of study and funding for these studies must be available to the wider scientific community,' he said. 'Our brightest minds should never have been limited in their access to breakthrough medical technologies, which essentially allowed the research of our global competitors to progress with an eight-year head start. Reversing the funding ban is a move that most in the scientific community welcome as long overdue'."   

"Although critics point to advances in the research of "reprogrammed" human somatic cells, which offer hope as an alternative to embryonic stem cells, Lindsay notes that any research gains require study of different types of stem cells, as embryonic stem cells can have properties different than stem cells created from reprogrammed somatic cells. 'There is promise in many alternative areas of research, but it's imprudent to dismiss research on embryonic stem cells simply to appease opponents whose dogmatic insistence that an embryo is the moral equivalent of an adult human has no basis in science'." 

"The Center for Inquiry also supports wholeheartedly the president's accompanying memorandum assuring the scientific community freedom from political ideology. In a statement to reporters, Obama science advisor and past National Institutes of Health director Dr. Harold Varmus said the president was acting on campaign promises to return the state of science research to its pre-Bush prominence."

"Echoing CFI's 2006 Declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism, Varmus said, 'Public policy must be guided by sound scientific advice'." ₇

"I think patients everywhere will be cheering us on, imploring us to work faster, harder and with all of our ability to find new treatments On a personal level, it is an enormous relief and a time for celebration. ... Science thrives when there is an open and collaborative exchange, not when there are artificial barriers, silos, constructed by the government." ₈

"There is an ethical imperative to relieve suffering and promote healing. This is good policy for a religiously pluralistic society that cares about human suffering and the relief of human suffering." ₉

"The principle is still that it's not only understandable but in some ways moral to use embryonic stem cells that are destined for destruction for research for helping people," he said. "I think we have to tread very lightly and very carefully, and I think we have to be vigilant for years to come." ₉

"I have been waking up many mornings very excited about the possibility of using these cells to target many of the problems we see with stroke, brain trauma, spinal cord injury." ₁₁

"We will be more scientifically free to look at all different kinds of cells and compare cells to one another. Our scientific opportunity is much much greater now. ... We are a profession about the respect for life. So everything we do with embryonic stem cells will be done with the utmost of care, ethics and oversight."₁₁

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