Bush defends stem cell funding veto in face of international criticism
Bush defends stem cell funding veto in face of international criticism
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Thursday, 20, Jul 2006 01:41
President Bush has defended his use of a veto on the Senate's decision to expand federal funding for stem cell research.
The bill would have enabled greater resources to further understand how to regenerate diseased or damaged cells, tissues and organs from embryonic stem cells, providing hope for patients and their families suffering from long-term, debilitating diseases.
However, Mr Bush announced: "This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others.
"It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect."
At a gathering of so-called 'snowflake children', who were born from adopted embryos which would otherwise have been destroyed, he added: "These boys and girls are not spare parts. They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research."
Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, an independent British academy promoting the natural and applied sciences, warned that millions of people could suffer as a result of the veto, arguing that the current policy on funding is "slowing down the global effort to develop therapies for a range of diseases and illnesses".
"The current restrictions prevent researchers in the United States from using federal funds not only to carry out studies involving stem cells derived in the last five years, but also to collaborate with their colleagues in other countries on such work," said Lord Rees.
"These restrictions are having a global knock-on effect that is ultimately slowing down research on stem cell therapies that could eventually help millions of patients in the United States and the rest of the world."
President Bush, shored up by his own ethical believes as well as America's powerful religious groups, issued the veto yesterday – the first of his presidency – in spite of the Senate's approval and appeals from California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nancy Reagan, the former first lady whose husband died after suffering from Alzheimer's disease.