Concerned Women for America - CWA Saddened by House Vote to Fund the Killing of Embryos: Heartened by passage of funding for ethical and effective cord stem cells

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CWA Saddened by House Vote to Fund the Killing of Embryos: Heartened by passage of funding for ethical and effective cord stem cells 5/25/2005

Washington D.C. – Concerned Women for America (CWA) denounced the passage of a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday to expand federal funding of deadly embryonic stem-cell research. It passed the same day as the families of Snowflakes, children adopted when they were frozen embryos, pleaded with Congress and stood with the President not to use tax dollars to kill innocent human life.

President Bush vowed to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. It passed 238 to 194, 50 votes shy of the two-thirds required to override a veto.

"Embryonic stem-cell research has been unconscionably hyped, by scientists, politicians and advocacy groups shamelessly manipulating patients and their families into believing their only hope lies in cannibalizing the young,” said Wendy Wright, CWA’s senior policy director. “While states, universities and foundations pour money into this latest fad, advocates crave the moral legitimacy they hope to gain with federal funding. And when the limited supply of orphaned embryos donated for research – a mere 2.8 percent of the 400,000 embryos in fertility clinics – runs out, the advocates will come back to the federal trough demanding tax dollars to create embryos for experimentation.”

Over 90 percent of frozen embryos are waiting to be used by their parents or donated to other couples for adoption – their parents do not want them used in experiments.

On the same day, the House passed by 431 to 1 funding for ethical cord stem cell research. The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act, supported by President Bush, would make umbilical- cord-blood stem cells available for research and treatment. These stem cells, also obtained from placentas, have treated thousands of patients of more than 67 diseases – 67 more diseases than embryonic stem cells have treated.

“This legislation will make it possible to further the therapeutic advances already gained through adult stem-cell research, rather than fund a science that destroys human life for a line of research that has yet to yield one single result in human treatments,” said Lanier Swann, CWA’s director of government relations.