Protecting Embryos Many Pro-Life leaders have been evaluating and commenting on President Bush’s August 9, 2001 decision about Federal funding of stem cell research. What if President Bush had prohibited Federal funds for all stem cell research that involved killing of human embryos, even for stem cell lines taken from already killed embryos? Would respect for the lives of human embryos have been protected? What about the ongoing killing of embryos for stem cell research funded by the private sector? As an analogy, what if all government funding of abortion was stopped today? Would our concern about abortion be any less? No, because abortion would continue, though no longer paid for by the government. So, why would we be satisfied if President Bush prohibited Federal funding of any stem cell research that involved the killing of embryos? Embryos would still be killed for stem cell research, funded from non-government sources. Since we easily recognize that we will never be satisfied until abortion is no longer legal, why are we apparently giving a pass to the privately funded killing of embryos for stem cell research? Why are we not insisting that the killing of embryos for stem cell research should be banned by law? A bill to ban the cloning of human beings (H.R. 2505) was recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Where is the companion bill to ban killing of human embryos? Have we already been desensitized by the ongoing creation of human embryos for in-vitro fertilization? What happens to the excess embryos from in-vitro fertilization? The choices are: freeze and store them, dispose of (kill) them, put them up for adoption, or release them for research. Storing them costs money. Adoption is unlikely except in rare cases. So killing them with or without research is the remaining choice. But this entire process conveys a utilitarian attitude about life. With that attitude in play, how can the value of human life be established and protected? It may not be possible to ban the process of in-vitro fertilization, but does not that process establish a utilitarian view of human life by supporting the premise that everyone has the right to become a parent, regardless of the process used? How many human embryos die in the process of attempting to provide a child to those parents? Where is the bill to, at least, ban the creation of excess embryos for in-vitro fertilization? Some will say that no attempt has been made to ban the killing of embryos for research or to ban the creation of excess embryos for in-vitro fertilization because such bills would not be likely to pass in Congress. Is not that assessment a political decision? How can we then criticize President Bush for making a political decision on the funding of stem cell research? Ultimately, the biggest concern is that by focusing on the Federal funding decision and not the underlying life issue, we have already conceded the moral issue by default. Would not that contribute to the difficulties the President had in coming to a decision? By not addressing the underlying issue up-front and clearly stating it, we did not give the President a foundation of support for the Federal funding decision that we wanted to see. But it is up to us to act! A few analyses even suggested that the President should have called for a ban on all killing of embryos for research while presenting his decision on Federal funding. Is it not our responsibility as leaders of the Pro-Life cause to at least start the discussion of such a need? Since the current law to prevent Federal funding of research that would involve the killing of human embryos became law in 1995, we have never created visibility for the protection of those embryos that were and are being killed with non-government money! How can we identify the President as the culprit responsible for the danger of further decline in respect for life that we now fear? Action is needed now! The message about the need to protect all human embryos must be given greater visibility by the Pro-Life movement. Legislation should be written that would provide a ban on the killing of human embryos for any purpose. Either as a companion bill or within the same bill, a ban on creation of excess embryos for in-vitro fertilization is needed as well. Let’s put the focus on the underlying life issues and stop analyzing the President’s recent funding decision. The time is already late to effectively frame this debate for the general public, and framing that debate is even more challenging given the anti-life bias of most news media outlets. It is up to us to demonstrate that we are serious about defending respect for life from conception to natural death.
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