Dear Friends,

It seems the President has scored an anti-life, anti-human “hat trick.” First the rescinding of the Mexico City Policy so that our tax dollars fund abortions in other nations (this has brought rebuke from several nations who resent the US telling them what to do when it comes to reproductive ethics); then slipped into the budget is funding for the UN Population Control Program which helps fund the Chinese coercive abortion policy; now the lifting of funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). I am waiting for the President to announce a new cabinet position: Secretary of the Culture of Death.

What exactly does the lifting of the restriction on funding for ESCR do?  For the first time in US history federal funds will be used for destructive research on innocent human beings. The new policy now permits NIH to fund labs doing research on all stem cell lines created by others. The Bush Policy allowed funding ($88million last year) on 22 lines created before 8/9/01. Remember a single line can be duplicated as needed. It does not permit funding for the actual process of destroying embryos but encourages others to do so. That would take an act of Congress since by statute it is illegal for the US government to fund the destruction of embryos. The Dickey Amendment (1995) prohibits funding for research in which embryos are destroyed or created for the purpose of research.  And Congress is poised to overturn this to make the Obama Policy complete. We should ask Congress not to change this amendment. Obama is funding the killers not the killing. Little reported in the policy change was that he also stopped NIH from funding alternative research, such as adult and induced pluripotent stem cells. (Rescinding Exec Order 13435 of 6/20/07). Here I thought his reasoning for the policy change was about giving all research equal footing, bring both sides to the table. We can now see his statements on this were phony and fraudulent. No dissent tolerated in the lab.

This policy change makes little economic or scientific sense but it does reveal contempt of anything pro-life and distain for the moderate Bush policy. Private labs and others throughout the world are leaving ESCR altogether not for any moral reason but because it is failed research. Research in other areas particularly Adult Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC: adult stem cells reprogrammed to act the same as embryonic stem cells but don’t involve the destruction of an embryo) have far surpassed ESCR. In fact in the last month labs in the UK and Canada have shown that iPSC are far more capable than previously thought and have all the flexibility of embryonic stem cells without a lot of the problems. The big problem with ESC’s is that they cause tumors, a problem that no one has overcome. And like an organ transplant the body often rejects them. Whereas since adult stem cells are your own no rejection occurs.

With all the hype about ESCR the fact that an ethical alternative is available (iPSC) is just trampled on. Not only is it ethical it is making ESCR obsolete. It seems that God understood the confusion that some have over whether or not an embryo is human life since it is not in the womb and offered us an alternative that sidesteps the issue of embryo destruction. It makes the argument mute. What we are witnessing with the lifting of funding restrictions is kicking a gift horse in the mouth. And God will not be mocked.

And the media? Most stories I see fail to differentiate the different types of stem cells, which lead the average person to believe there are only embryonic stem cells. They also falsely label the Bush Policy as shutting down all ESCR which it did not. They also continue to claim it will cure Alzheimer’s. I still can’t find a scientist who will make this claim or even say for sure if regenerative medicine can be applicable to Alzheimer’s. The media also fail to challenge the claim that “we are lagging behind the rest of the world in this research”. Well where has the rest of the world gotten with ESCR? In a word: nowhere. The rest of the world has not had any restrictions on funding yet they have gotten no further than US labs. When you hear these stories you are led to believe that no ESCR has been happening in the US when in fact it has and has been handsomely funded by private and states capital. Witness California that voted to fund ESCR to the tune of $3billion a few years ago. Nor does the mainstream media report the incredible advances in treatments using Adult Stem Cells. So far the score in successful therapies is: Non-embryonic Stem Cells: 70+ (the only stem cells to have actually helped anyone to date) and Embryonic Stem Cells: O (and its not for lack of trying). This policy change is cruel because it gives false hope to those who suffer.

In the end the debate is not over the facts, since in a postmodern world facts seem to matter little nor is it a debate between what works and what doesn’t or between what is right and what is wrong. It is a debate over which is the correct way to think about science: science with moral guidelines or science that bows to nothing. It is wrong to imply that religious faith was corrupting science. It is faith informing reason and giving science a moral backbone. The destruction of human life for experimentation is not a scientific question it is a moral one.

Unfortunately even though induced pluripotent stem cells are the ideal compromise, the President chose to willfully ignore this research and incentivize the mass destruction of embryonic human life claiming he is restoring “integrity” to science. The President is grossly mistaken when he claims the previous policy was “ideology trumping science”. After all this is a moral and policy argument not a scientific one. His new radical policy degrades human life and reveals his thinking that “all are not created equal”.

Love,

Fr. John Bonavitacola