The public comment period on new draft guidelines for taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research (ESCr) comes to an end 11:00 p.m. E.S.T. Tuesday night.
Following President Obama's executive order March 9 releasing taxpayer funding for ESCR, the National Institutes of Health drafted guidelines that Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called "a new chapter in divorcing biomedical research from its necessary ethical foundation."
While Clinton-era ESCR policy was limited to allowing research on frozen embryos, so as to ensure parents had time to consider their decision to have the embryos destroyed, Rigali noted, "the new guidelines are broader in allowing destruction of newly created embryos that were never frozen, increasing the prospects for a rushed and biased consent process."
"Despite supporters' constant claim that this agenda involves only embryos that 'would otherwise be discarded,' the guidelines provide that the option of donating embryonic children for destructive research will be offered to parents alongside all other options, including those allowing the embryos to live," said Rigali.
"For the first time, federal tax dollars will be used to encourage destruction of living embryonic human beings for stem cell research - including human beings who otherwise would have survived and been born."
Click here to comment on the NIH draft guidelines
Click here to comment to your U.S. Senators and Representative
Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121
Full contact info for U.S. Congressmen can be found at...
Click here for the U.S. Senate
Click here for the U.S. House of Representatives
Contact: Kathleen Gilbert
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: May 22, 2009
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