[Apologetics] FW: Behind Obama's Executive Order that Will Require The Killing of Human Embryos

[Art Kelly]

________________________________

From: nrlc at nrlc.org [mailto:nrlc at nrlc.org] 
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 4:58 PM
To: Art Kelly
Subject: Behind Obama's Executive Order that Will Require The Killing of
Human Embryos



 

 <http://www.nrlc.org/images/nrlogo2.gif> 	National 
Right to Life	       Today's 
News & Views

Today's News & Views
March 9, 2009

Behind Obama's Decision to Sign an Executive Order to Allow Federal
Funding of Research that Will Require The Killing of Human Embryos 

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Be sure also to post this TN&V on your social networking
pages by going to www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/nv030909.html   and
clicking on the "Share" button.

"Regarding Obama's instructions to NIH to develop 'strict guidelines' to
govern embryonic stem cell research, NRLC Legislative Director Douglas
Johnson commented, 'These so-called ethical safeguards are really merely
procedural requirements, an attempt to cloak the fundamentally unethical
act of sacrificing living members of our species, homo sapiens, in order
to provide raw material for research.'...

 <http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/BO.jpg> 	
Pro-abortion President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order today
allowing federal funding of research that will require the killing of
human embryos.

"Obama also issued a second directive purporting to free federally
sponsored scientific research from the influence of 'ideology.' Johnson
commented, 'Giving an absolutely free hand to elites of specialists can
result in the ideology of the specialists being imposed on society as a
whole. Scientific endeavors that utilize human subjects or otherwise
pose dangers to innocent human life must always be subject to oversight
by society as a whole, through regular democratic processes.'"
     -- From a NRLC press release, commenting on President Barack
Obama's decision today to reverse a policy instituted by former
President George W. Bush in August 2001, which funded research only on
already-existing stem cell lines and not on research that would require
the destruction of human life.

In the infamous words of terminally smug pro-abortion Speaker of the
House Nancy Pelosi, "We won. We run things now." Well, yes and no, and
maybe for a lot shorter period of time than the San Francisco Democrat
believes. 

Most of our TN&V readers are aware that earlier today Mr. Middle of the
Road, aka pro-abortion President Barack Obama, overturned the carefully
crafted policy on embryonic stem cells instituted by pro-life President
George W. Bush--"the latest reversal of his predecessor's policies," as
the Associated Press's Philip Elliott put it succinctly this morning.
For good measure--and cover--Obama also promulgated a "presidential
memorandum" that promises to make research on human embryos using
federal dollars squeaky clean. Let's look a moment to examine what's
really going on.

Just as overturning the Mexico City Policy opened the financial spigot
to anti-life organizations, Obama has now invited researchers to apply
for federal dollars to conduct research on human embryos. And just as
was the case January 23 when Obama gutted the Mexico City Policy, very
few news accounts talked about the real agenda of today's action.
Interesting enough, that is not true of the New York Times. (See below.)

As always, the Obama team steeps its actions as an attempt to get beyond
the "old politics." Indeed, we are supposed to believe that the
presidential memorandum he issued isn't really just to grease the skids
to kill human embryos, but is to "assure a number of effective standards
and practices that will help our society feel that we have the
highest-quality individuals carrying out scientific jobs and that
information is shared with the public," as Harold Varmus, who co-chairs
Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, told reporters in
a conference phone call yesterday. 

Right.

Three quick thoughts.

#1. Obama is going to leave the heavy lifting to Congress--that is,
determining "whether the long-standing legislative ban on federal
financing for human embryo experiments should also be overturned." The
reference is to the Dickey-Wicker law, which since 1995 has been a
provision of the annual appropriations bills for federal health
programs. This law prohibits the use of federal tax dollars to create
human embryos, or research in which human embryos "are destroyed,
discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." Only
Congress can overturn the amendment.

#2. Contrary to the impression left, nothing in what Obama said today
limits NIH to the use of stem cells scavenged from so-called "spare
embryos" created in IVF clinics. Why is this important? Because many
researchers never did focus on (or have long since stopped caring about)
what is in fact the relatively small number of human embryos parents are
willing to have experimented on. They are eager to create human embryos,
by cloning and other methods. Any legislator who votes to repeal the
Dickey-Wicker amendment can rightly be described as opening the door to
the creation of human embryo farms.

#3. The aforementioned New York Times, in an article today written by
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, goes into detail about the prospects of overturning
the Dickey-Wicker amendment:  "[P]eople on both sides of the stem cell
debate say Mr. Obama's announcement could lead to a reconsideration of
the ban on Capitol Hill, an idea so controversial and fraught with
ethical implications that the mere discussion of it would have been
unthinkable just a few months ago, when President George W. Bush was in
office."

Many stories, of course, either totally ignored the stunning
breakthroughs using sources other than human embryos and/or ignored the
well-documented dangers inherent in using embryonic stem cells. One
exception came from former NIH head Dr. Bernadette Healy, no pro-lifer,
by the way.

"Even for strong backers of embryonic stem cell research, the decision
is no longer as self-evident as it was, because there is markedly
diminished need for expanding these cell lines for either patient
therapy or basic research," she wrote. "In fact, during the first six
weeks of Obama's term, several events reinforced the notion that
embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's, and diabetes, are obsolete."

The one thing we can count on is that the anti-life crowd will continue
to push and push and push. We will keep you up to date on all aspects of
this action in the days and weeks to come.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko at gmail.com. 

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