NIH Revisiting ESCR Guidelines, Tell Them What You Think

ChelseaCloning, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, PoliticsLeave a Comment

Today the Family Research Council issued this action call:

As you may know, President Bush’s policy was to allow funding for research that involved embryonic stem cells taken from human embryos so long as the cells were obtained on or prior to August 9, 2001. Since then, the government has funded research on over 22 stem cell lines. President Bush’s policy erected a wall and did not encourage the further killing of human embryos for their cells.

However, on March 9, 2009 President Barack Obama issued an executive order that overturned President Bush’s policy and opened the floodgates for funding more embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) that creates an incentive to create and destroy human embryos. President Obama designated the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to draft guidelines for distributing funds for this research. Last week, April 23, NIH officially posted draft guidelines to open federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells. What these guidelines do is send your tax dollars to experiment on stem cells taken from human embryos that supposedly are “leftover” from in vitro fertilization. Instead of promoting the adoption of these human embryos, these draft guidelines would require their death.

The public comment period on these draft regulations is 30 days, and we ask that you submit comments to oppose these regulations on or before May 26, 2009. To submit your comment, please go to this website and fill out the form with your comment.

Please submit your comment directly to the National Institutes of Health by May 26, 2009 to oppose use of federal funds for research on human embryonic stem cells.

It is important to note that some of our members of Congress are upset that the new NIH guidelines are too narrow and do not allow for the cloning of human embryos for this scientific research. Sen. Diana DeGette says that she hopes they will allow for federal funding of SCNT (also known as cloning), but if they don’t right now, she plans on introducing pro-cloning legislation worded in such a way so that they can change their mind in the future. This is exactly what National Right to Life warned about in its March 31 letter to members of Congress about the “forthcoming bait-and-switch on legislation on embryonic stem cell research and human cloning.”

As it is right now federal funds are prohibited from being used for the deliberate creation and destruction of human embryos for research thanks to the recent renewal of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. But it may only be a matter of time before that legislation is also reversed and the NIH is given the ability to fund research on human embryos, including therapeutic cloning, according to its own discretion.

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