President Bush’s “moral objection” to human embryonic stem cell research is “hypocritical,” Michael Hadjiargyrou — an associate professor of biomedical engineering, genetics and orthopedics at Stony Brook University in New York — writes in a New York Times letter to the editor (Hadjiargyrou, New York Times, 4/17). Federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research is allowed only for research using embryonic stem cell lines created on or before Aug. 9, 2001, under a policy announced by Bush on that date. Bush has threatened to veto legislation (S 5), which passed the Senate last week, that would allow federal funding for research using stem cells derived from human embryos originally created for fertility treatments and willingly donated by patients. Bush has said that the bill “crosses a moral line that [he] and many others find troubling” (Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 4/12). Bush “had no problem starting and supporting a war that has caused the deaths of thousands and did not voice any objection to the death penalty when 131 prisoners were executed while he was governor of Texas,” Hadjiargyrou writes. He concludes that “in Bush’s ideological world, protecting laboratory-created cells is far more important than preserving the lives of the people who might be treated for diseases, disorders and trauma as a result of embryonic stem cell research” (New York Times, 4/17).
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