News
Stem cell funding bill gets Republican co-sponsor
The Hill
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Charlie Dent is taking the place of defeated Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) as the lead co-sponsor of embryonic stem cell legislation, offering key Republican support for a controversial bill reviled by many social conservatives.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), would give legislative backing to President Obama’s 2009 executive order allowing federal funding for medical research using discarded embryos from fertility clinics.
A federal appeals court upheld the order earlier this year, but the bill’s proponents say a pending legal challenge — and the possibility of a future president overturning the order — are having a chilling effect on new research. The Department of Justice last week asked a U.S. district judge to end the lawsuit.
The bill’s critics object on religious and moral grounds, arguing that the research destroys viable embryos to harvest the stem cells.
“This area of research is important to finding critical breakthroughs in a number of areas,” Dent told The Hill. The bill “does establish ethical criteria for stem cell research, and I think that’s very, very important.”
To be eligible for federal funding, Dent pointed out, research would have to use leftover embryos that would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded. In addition, donors would have to sign written consent forms and would be barred from receiving financial compensation. The bill also prohibits federal funding for human cloning, in accordance with National Institutes of Health guidelines.
