Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research

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Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

Friday, March 13, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

The amendment says, in part: “None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

Found in Section 509 of Title V of the omnibus bill (at page 280 of the 465-page document), the federal funding ban not only prohibits the government from providing tax dollars to support research that kills or risks injury to a human embryo, it also mandates that the government use an all-inclusive definition of “human embryo” that encompasses any nascent human life from the moment that life comes into being, even if created in a laboratory through cloning, in vitro fertilization or any other means.

“For the purposes of this section,” says the law, “the term ‘human embryo or embryos’ includes any organism … that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.” (The entire verbatim text of Section 509 of the omnibus spending law is reprinted at the bottom of this article.)

For the complete article go to:

cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

This article gave me a momentary spurt of hope, but then I quickly remembered how laws can be discarded.

Anyone else seen this?
 
elts1956 said:
Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

Friday, March 13, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

The amendment says, in part: “None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

Found in Section 509 of Title V of the omnibus bill (at page 280 of the 465-page document), the federal funding ban not only prohibits the government from providing tax dollars to support research that kills or risks injury to a human embryo, it also mandates that the government use an all-inclusive definition of “human embryo” that encompasses any nascent human life from the moment that life comes into being, even if created in a laboratory through cloning, in vitro fertilization or any other means.

“For the purposes of this section,” says the law, “the term ‘human embryo or embryos’ includes any organism … that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.” (The entire verbatim text of Section 509 of the omnibus spending law is reprinted at the bottom of this article.)

For the complete article go to:

cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

This article gave me a momentary spurt of hope, but then I quickly remembered how laws can be discarded.

Anyone else seen this?
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The way I figure, it must be an oversight on Obama’s part, not an intentional move. I am sure he will make efforts to correct his ‘blunder’ as soon as the realization sets in. 😦
 
mapleoak said:
The way I figure, it must be an oversight on Obama’s part, not an intentional move. I am sure he will make efforts to correct his ‘blunder’ as soon as the realization sets in. 😦
Click to expand...
I agree. If it weren’t for the fact that this one policy was “buried” among about a hundred or more others, it wouldn’t have been signed.

I wonder if there are any more hidden pro life laws out there? :hmmm:
 
elts1956 said:
I agree. If it weren’t for the fact that this one policy was “buried” among about a hundred or more others, it wouldn’t have been signed.

I wonder if there are any more hidden pro life laws out there? :hmmm:
Click to expand...
Just goes to show you the depth of brain activity in our president. Finally his ignorance is used for a good thing.
 
Was it this Wednesday? This Wednesday was the Annunciation. Maybe The Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Gabriel, the Archangel, and Obama’s Guardian Angel worked with God on this. He did sign it. You’re probably right about his making a mistake, but let’s see. I shouldn’t have been ripping on him when I said I was stopping. He just drives me crazy sometimes!
 
Tsuwano said:
Maybe he changed his mind.
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Doubtful since he was on TV just this week defending his decision to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

BTW, the article in the OP has it wrong. President Bush did not ban federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. He was the first president to actually authorize such funding. For nearly 8 years, the Democratic Party and much of the media systematically repeated the lie that President Bush banned such research and/or banned federal funds for such research.

Now it seems as if President Obama has actually done what President Bush didn’t do, but was still pilloried for. Where’s the outrage this time?

I think this could be yet another piece of evidence that the main reason President Obama got elected is because he so skillfully converted Bush Derangement Syndrome into votes.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
mlchance said:
Doubtful since he was on TV just this week defending his decision to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

BTW, the article in the OP has it wrong. President Bush did not ban federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. He was the first president to actually authorize such funding. For nearly 8 years, the Democratic Party and much of the media systematically repeated the lie that President Bush banned such research and/or banned federal funds for such research. ???
Now it seems as if President Obama has actually done what President Bush didn’t do, but was still pilloried for. Where’s the outrage this time?

I think this could be yet another piece of evidence that the main reason President Obama got elected is because he so skillfully converted Bush Derangement Syndrome into votes.

– Mark L. Chance.
Click to expand...
Please explain in more detail what you are talking about. Sources?? I am confused.
 
President Bush was the first president to authorize federal monies for embryonic stem cell research. See stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2001policy.htm. Here’s a brief of President Bush’s restrictions on that funding:

  1. *]The derivation process (which begins with the destruction of the embryo) was initiated prior to 9:00 P.M. EDT on August 9, 2001.
    *]The stem cells must have been derived from an embryo that was created for reproductive purposes and was no longer needed.
    *]Informed consent must have been obtained for the donation of the embryo and that donation must not have involved financial inducements.

    See also edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/07-3112.pdf for later developments by President Bush.

    Despite the fact that President Bush authorized federal funding for ESC, he somehow ended up tarred-and-feathered as the anti-science guy. Repeatedly during the last two presidential elections, Democratic Party candidates said President Bush had banned embryonic stem cell research and/or banned funding of such research. Neither statement is true.

    President Obama has now seemingly (a) lifted Bush Administration restrictions on expanding federal funding for ESC, (b) publicly defended his decision to do so, and (c) signed a law undoes his own executive order.

    – Mark L. Chance.
 
This doesn’t undo his executive order. That executive order did not allow the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos–the Dickey-Wicker Amendment from 1995 makes that illegal.

The main effect of his executive order was to allow federal funds to be used with already existing stem cell lines. President Bush was the first President to allow the use of federal funds from embryonic stem cell research, but he limited the funds to stem cell lines created before August 2001. President Obama’s executive order removes that restriction, allowing funding of research on newer and better stem cell lines.
 
…if we try hard enough, we can find all kinds of reason’s to dump on the guy…man, can’t get a break.😃
 
This doesn’t undo his executive order. That executive order did not allow the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos–the Dickey-Wicker Amendment from 1995 makes that illegal.
President Obama’s executive order removes that restriction, allowing funding of research on newer and better stem cell lines.

Benedictus, isn’t what Obama’s doing in the second sentence, then, illegal, according to the Dickey-Wicker Amendment?
 
foolishmortal said:
Benedictus, isn’t what Obama’s doing in the second sentence, then, illegal, according to the Dickey-Wicker Amendment?
Click to expand...
No. Federal funds still can’t be used to destroy embryos. Before President Obama’s executive order, research stem cell lines created after August 2001 was not eligible for federal funding. Now, stem cell lines created after August 2001 can be used in research funded by the feds, but the money cannot be used to actually destroy the embryos. For example, a stem cell line created last year would now be eligible.
 
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