posted on June 16, 2004 10:20:47 PM new
Apparently President Reagan & Nancy were at odds on stem-cell research. President Reagan was against it as the article below reports.
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Document: Reagan wouldn't back Nancy
Draft executive order shows opposition to embryo research
Posted: June 17, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
While Nancy Reagan is urging the Bush administration to reverse its opposition to federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, a document has surfaced indicating President Reagan would not have supported his wife's campaign.
The issue has gathered more attention in the wake of Reagan's death June 5 after suffering for 10 years from Alzheimer's, a disease some researchers hope can be addressed through breakthroughs in the use of stem cells.
President Bush opposes government support of the embryonic research because it involves the destruction of human life, and a draft executive order Reagan worked on shortly before he left office indicates his policy would have been the same.
The order was to "continue and broaden the [1988] moratorium on NIH [National Institute of Health] grants for certain types of fetal experimentation," according to Charles Colson, the former Nixon aide who now leads a Christian ministry, Prison Fellowship.
Colson, in his daily radio commentary, said he received the document from William Clark, Reagan's national security adviser and close personal friend.
"Reagan took a clear stand against research that would harm or destroy 'any living child in utero,' in all stages of development in which scientists were then able to experiment on them," Colson said.
Clark insists Reagan clearly was opposed to funding embryo research.
Writing recently in the New York Times, he said, "After the charter expired for the Departments of Health, Education and Welfare’s ethical advisory board – which in the 1970s supported destructive research on human embryos – [Reagan] began a de facto ban on federal financing of embryo research that he held to throughout his presidency."
The presidential adviser also noted Reagan, in his 1993 speech known for it's "evil empire" reference, "spoke strongly against the denegration of innocent human life."
"And [Reagan] favored bills in Congress that would have given every human being – at all stages of development – protection as a person under the 14th Amendment," Clark said.
Reagan also favored a Human Life Amendment defining life as beginning at conception.
In addition, Clark notes, Reagan "would have asked the marketplace question: If human embryonic research is so clearly promising as the researchers assert, why aren't private investors putting [their] money into it, as they are in adult stem-cell research?"
Researchers, according to an Insight magazine report published by WND, are engaged in a "stem-cell war," a deliberate effort to downplay the proven value of adult stem cells to attract more attention to the potential of embryonic stem cells.
Insight says while activists such as spinally injured actor Christopher Reeve argue that if not for Bush administration and congressional restrictions on embyonic stem-cell funding he might be walking in a few years, there are no approved treatments – and no human trials – involving embryonic stem cells.
Each of the promising therapies and experiments to date has involved adult stem cells, which include cells found in nonadult tissue such as umbilical cords, placentas and amniotic fluid.
Prior to Reagan's death, Colson notes, 58 U.S. senators signed a letter asking Bush to remove restrictions he implemented last year on federal funding of the embryo research. Now many, including Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, are pointing to Reagan's long illness and death as justification.
"It's certainly understandable that Nancy Reagan, after the terrible ordeal she's been through, might look with favor on any possibility of defeating Alzheimer’s," Colson said in his commentary.
"It's even understandable that others, misled by extravagant promises and blind to what's really going on, are grasping at the same straw," he continued. "But they ought to argue their case on its merits – what few merits it has – and not enlist in their cause the name of Ronald Reagan, who stood foursquare against the exploitation and destruction of human life in any stage.
"That is one legacy he would have never wanted to leave."
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
posted on June 17, 2004 05:41:41 AM new
This is my #1 gripe against Bush. Not the war, not the economy. Stem Cells. He's an IDIOT!
I am against abortion. But abortion *IS* legal, so why not make use of the leftover bits? Seems a true waste - at least something positive could come from all the abortions.
ALheimers, paralysis, even cures for aging itself could be found in stem cells.
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We do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing -- Anonymous
posted on June 17, 2004 08:21:16 AM new
Most peculiar, the passing of America's most pro-life president is supposed to be a clarion call for conservatives to support the disemboweling of human embryos – in contrast to that heartless brute President Bush always prattling on about the value of human life.
Someone persuaded poor, dear Nancy Reagan that research on human embryos might have saved her Ronnie from Alzheimer's. Now the rest of us are supposed to shut up because the wife of America's greatest president (oh, save your breath, girls!) supports stem-cell research.
Ironically, the always market-oriented Ronald Reagan would probably have asked his wife, "Honey, if embryonic stem-cell therapy is such a treasure trove of medical advances, why isn't private research and development funding flocking to it?"
President Bush has never said that fetal stem cells cannot be used for research. He said "federal money" cannot be used to fund such research. If leading scientists believed fetal stem-cell research would prove to be so fruitful in curing Alzheimer's, why is the private money not pouring in hand over fist?
Do you realize how many billions a cure for Alzheimer's would be worth, let alone all the other cures some are claiming fetal stem-cell research would lead to? Forget Alzheimer's – do you know how much middle-aged men would pay for a genuine baldness cure? Then again, Porsche sales would probably fall off quite a bit if we ever cured baldness.
But you can't blame Nancy. As everyone saw once again last week, she's still madly in love with the guy. She'd probably support harvesting full-grown, living humans if it would bring back Ronnie.
Of course, I thought it was cute and not creepy that she consulted an astrologer about Reagan's schedule after he was shot. That didn't make astrology a hard science. But liberals who once lambasted Nancy for having too much influence on Reagan's schedule now want to anoint her Seer of Technology.
posted on June 17, 2004 09:24:27 AM new
In response, opponents of human embryonic stem cell research identify the major ethical problem as the source of those cells. Living human embryos, who are the most vulnerable of human beings, must be destroyed in the process of taking their stem cells out of their bodies for this research, and it is never ethically acceptable to intentionally kill any innocent human being - no matter how small, even if the "possible benefit" is to the "many". Nor is it ever permissible to do evil that good may come of it.
Given that the goals cited by the proponents are laudable and good, the means to those goals must also be ethically good - and here the "means" used in these experiments are the death and destruction of living innocent human beings. It is to reduce them to mere objects for the use of others, rather than subjects with inherent ethical rights deserving of equal protection. Our own slavery laws, Nazi medicine, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments and recent government-sponsored radiation experiments also operated on such a two-tier caste of "humanity". And if impending death were the criteria for being allowed to kill human beings, then we could also kill terminally ill patients, death-row inmates and military service personnel facing combat for their organs and stem cells too -for the "greater good". They also note that fetal cord blood cells have already proven successful, and the use of adult stem cells from the same ill patient would by-pass the medical crisis of immuno-incompatibility.
Even foreign adult stem cells can be treated with drugs to "hide" the guilty antigens. New drugs like telomerase can keep these cells growing in culture indefinitely, and new hormones like growth factors are being successfully used to encourage cell specialization. Most critically, even adult stem cells can be "coaxed" to become less specialized (less differentiated), and can even provide cell types distinct from their own usual fate (as already mentioned). Finally, adult stem cells are already closer to the kinds of cells that patients already need.
So there is really no need to use human embryonic stem cells at all. This has been acknowledged by major researchers, companies, and massive numbers of medical research journal articles recently published in this field.
