The Dickey Amendment forbids federal funding of destructive embryo research. That is, it doesn’t prohibit the research, it just doesn’t permit the federal government to pay for it.
Recently, President Obama’s ESCR funding policy was blocked by a federal judge because it violated Dickey. The Obama Administration sought a stay, but no go. From the story:
A federal judge Tuesday rejected the Obama administration’s request to stay his recently imposed injunction against use of public funds in embryonic stem-cell research. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said he could not agree to delay his injunction while the case is appealed. “Defendants (the government) are incorrect about much of their ‘parade of horribles’ that will supposedly result from this Court’s preliminary injunction,” Lamberth wrote in his court order. The “horribles” he referred to are an extensive list of research projects outlined by the National Institutes of Health that will have to be shelved if a stay is not granted. “Congress has mandated that the public interest is served by preventing taxpayer funding of research that entails the destruction of human embryos,” Lamberth said “In this court’s view a stay would flout the will of Congress as this Court understands what Congress has enacted…Congress remains perfectly free to amend or revise the statute. This Court is not free to do so,” Lamberth concluded.
This means that unless the government can get an emergency stay on appeal, federal funding of ESCR will grind to a halt. If that happens, expect the Congress to try and move The Stem Cell Research Advancement Act of 2009” (HR 4808), that would specifically authorize federal funding of ESCR, and thereby get around Dickey.
While I wouldn’t like it, I think that provision alone would probably pass in the current Congress. But there is a hitch that raises the stakes even higher: As I reported here, the bill also specifically authorizes the federal funding of human cloning research. And that is a line in the sand we cannot allow to be crossed. So, if H R 4808 is not amended, expect a concerted effort in the Congress to block it. It will be an interesting Fall.
September 7th, 2010 | 8:02 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys and Stand In The Gap, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: The Coming Battle Over the Dickey Amendment » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://t.co/vo2JRuW [...]
September 8th, 2010 | 8:42 am
1) The bill does allow for the generation of a cloned zygote (human, of course). Such a bill will allow for the generation of a cloned embryo to obtain, for example, “designer” stem cells.
2) The bill does not allow said zygote to be implanted into a womb, or womb substitute.
I guess this is the new definition of “human cloning”. Therefore, step 1 above can be considered… “embryo cloning”, perhaps. These are just human definitions and constructs after all. No law of nature claims, for example, that such “embryo cloning” = “human cloning”. There are many types of cloning in science. It’s just copying genetic material. You can clone a gene for example, it’s called “gene cloning”.
Anyways, why is THAT LINE IN THE SAND a measure we should not cross?
I highly doubt the zygote cares if it is generated by cloning, sexually, – or artificially one day. (How can you care if you don’t have consciousness?) In both former cases, they are just embryos, of which we have 500,000 already sitting around in liquid nitrogen. If the embryo is not allowed to become sentient, conscious human life, why is THAT line the absolute barrier?
How is THAT any morally/ethically different than other forms of embryo generation – particularly the production that occurs at INfertility clinics?
A slippery slope argument starts and stops… anywhere.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact