The Current Embryonic Stem Cell Research Federal Funding Policy: Undue Respect to Minority Ethical Considerations ?

摘要

Since the first human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) were successfully isolated and cultured in November of 1998, the ethical debates and political responses to those debates have been fierce. Although the ethical debates have been mostly static and have closely mimicked the ethical debates over abortion, the political determinations concerning federal and state funding of stem cell research have gone through numerous evolutions in the years since the first hESCs were isolated and cultured. Beginning with the federal policy determinations concerning embryo research generally, through the attachment of the Dickey Amendment to appropriations legislation every year since 1996, to President Clinton's policy on research using hESCs, and finally culminating in the current federal funding policy promulgated by President Bush in his 2001 Address to the Nation, the federal government's response to hESC research has changed drastically over time. So while the ethical arguments have remained substantially the same, the policy determinations have evolved in response to the growing scientific possibilities of stem cell research and the political leanings of the President himself. This creates the very real possibility that the federal funding policy on hESC research could change drastically in light of the 2008 Presidential election.