Stem Cell Pioneer

I bet most or even all of you think that President Bush is an ignorant, snake-handling, inquisitional, “over my cold, dead body” foe of any and all stem-cell research. That is, after all, what John Kerry and his Democrat surrogates have been saying ever since the Boston Bacchanalia.

As usual, what they say is parsecs from the truth.

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson synopsizes it deftly in today’s USA Today:

Three years ago, President Bush made the decision to open, for the first time, the laboratory doors to federal funding for human-embryonic-stem-cell research. He determined, however, that federal funds should not be used to encourage or support the destruction of living human embryos, a principle that has been part of federal law since 1996. Funds would be made available for research derived from embryos that had already been destroyed. He placed no limits on private funding of research.

The President's policy is working. Federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research has grown from zero dollars in 2001 to $24.8 million now, with no cap on future funding. Most of the established U.S. scientists in this field have received funding, and shipments of stem-cell lines are going out to researchers in record numbers. More lines are available in the USA than in any other country.

At the same time, state governments and the private sector are supporting research outside the federal guidelines. One study estimates that 1,000 scientists at more than 30 firms spent $208 million experimenting on embryonic and adult stem cells in 2002.

Much important stem cell work is also being done without wrestling with the ethics of research on embryos. Last year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded $190 million in "adult" stem-cell research on, for example, cells from bone marrow or placental tissue.

Yes, that’s right – George W. Bush is the first American president to publicly fund stem cell research. The ONLY thing Democrats would do differently is to include the wanton destruction of living human embryos as part of their overarching jihad against unborn human life.

Are there no depths to which these people will not stoop to satisfy their lust for child sacrifice – or destroying the Bush presidency?

Apparently not.