Where Have You Gone, Ron Reagan?
From today's washingtonpost.com:
Me: "Any chance of your returning to "Saturday Night Live"? How was it hosting that show?"
Ron Reagan: "It was fun. That was a long time ago. So far I haven't been invited back."
Hey, Saturday Night Live: invite Ron back. As a strong advocate favoring stem cell research, he deserves more attention. OK, so maybe you don't want him imitating Tom Cruise, but then, neither does Nicole Kidman, so no loss there. Maybe he could debate the Bush daughters. Incidentally, how does the one twin NOT get into Yale, with three generations of Yalies before her, including a U.S. President and a U.S. Senator from Connecticut? What did she do to not get in?
Go Ron Reagan, and continue standing up against those who fear progress. We need to convince more of the Religious We're Right that they should be more humanitarian by supporting efforts to save lives and lessen human suffering. Now, I know some nuns support human suffering, but that's another story. Let's join in solving problems.
posted by Tchaikovsky Sounds Funny at 10:25 AM
1 Comments:
support adult stem cell research (ASC) because it has been proven effective. Contrary to popular belief there is no ban on stem cell research.
In accordance with the "Dickey Amendment," passed each year since 1995, research involving the destruction of human embryos cannot be funded with taxpayer dollars. This is not Bush's policy; it is the law of the land, passed annually by Congress and signed by both Presidents Clinton and Bush. This law does not ban embryo research, and it does not fund embryo research. It is a policy of public silence.
In 2000, the Clinton administration discovered a loophole that would allow the NIH to provide some federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research without asking Congress to overturn the Dickey amendment. By law, the government could not fund research "in which" embryos were destroyed. But if the destruction itself were funded privately, the government could offer funds for subsequent research on embryonic-stem-cell lines derived from the destroyed embryos. In other words: A researcher could destroy endless numbers of embryos in his private lab, and then use the fruits of such destruction to get public funding. This would not violate the letter of the law, but surely the spirit.
When he took office in 2001, President Bush put implementation of the Clinton guidelines on hold. He wanted a way to support potentially promising research, but he also did not believe the federal government should create an ongoing incentive for the destruction of human embryos. On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced his new guidelines: federal funding for research using stem-cell lines that existed before the announcement, but not for those created after. In this way, federal money would not act as an incentive for destroying human embryos in the future, but stem cells derived from embryos already destroyed in the past could be used with federal money to explore the basic science.
Janet M. LaRue, Concerned Women for America Chief Counsel, in response to Leon
1:23 PM
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