Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research Temporarily Stopped!

In exciting news, a federal judge today ruled that Obama’s provision of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research violated Congress’ Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  This amendment specifically prohibits federal funding for research that would destroy embryonic stem cells.

President Bush got around this amendment by claiming that he was only providing funding for research on existing stem cell lines (not the creation of embryonic stem cells) and that the funding would only apply to lines already in existence before August 9th, 2001.  Through this combination of restrictions, the Bush ESCR funding claimed to be disconnected from the destruction of human embryos and unlikely to provide any incentive for the creation of new embryos for the purpose of destruction.

President Obama decided to remove the time frame restrictions and left himself wide open to this kind of ruling.  Since federal money will go to fund embryonic stem cell research on new lines, researchers are encouraged to obtain new lines in hopes of securing federal funding.  In fact, the judge (Royce C. Lamberth) made an even stronger criticism than this – from The Los Angeles Times (click here to read the original story):

It was “the unambiguous intent of Congress to prohibit the expenditure of federal funds on ‘research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed,’ ” Lamberth wrote, citing language from Dickey-Wicker.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which operates the NIH, had argued that the act of creating embryonic stem cells was distinct from research that used the cells to study the development of genetic diseases or to create replacement cells that might treat conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s and the paralysis that results from spinal cord injuries.

But research is a long, continuous process that can’t be partitioned into discrete pieces, Lamberth wrote. If Congress meant to prohibit funding only for specific scientific acts, it could have said so. “Congress, however, has not written the statute that way, and this Court is bound to apply the law as it is written,” the ruling said.

This is good news for those concerned about protecting human life in all its ages and stages.  It will be interesting to see how it all turns out, but this judge’s ruling on Dickey-Wicker seems to make clear sense of the amendment.  The Obama administration issued a brash executive order, disregarding laws on the books – and now their agenda may suffer for it greatly.  Check out some more analysis at Secondhand Smoke (click here).