Deddens Responds to Funding for Destroying Human Embryos

John-Paul Deddens, Executive Director of Students for Life of Illinois Responds to Expansion of Federal Funds for Research Destroying Human Embryos

It is outrageous that President Obama has chosen to expand taxpayer funding for scientific research that will take the lives thousands of living human embryos. While at the earliest stages of life, these embryos truly are human beings. Most standard embryology text books agree that life begins at fertilization, whether fertilization occurs naturally within the woman's body or in a laboratory though artificial reproductive technologies. “The time of fertilization marks the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” (Patten's Foundations of Embryology; Bruce M. Carlson.)

The promise of embryonic stem cell research is currently in serious question because there have been, to date, no successful treatments or cures using cells taken from human embryos. The media often fails to make the proper distinction between embryonic stem cell research, which has no record of success and violates ethical standards, and adult stem cell research, which has provided many treatments. Using adult stem cells and stem cells found in umbilical cord blood--which do not destroy human life--holds more promise for progress in both research and treatments.

Furthermore, within the past year important developments have occurred in reprogramming adult stem cells to take on pluripotent qualities. These cells take on the qualities of embryonic stem cells without the ethical baggage. Why spend taxpayer money to destroy human life when it is unnecessary at every level?

Funding embryonic stem cell research is terrible public policy and poor appropriation of funds at a time when our nation's economy is suffering greatly. Why pump money into research that is so speculative? This funding is of great concern, for not only does it facilitate the destruction of human life, but it could lead to coercion among the students we know and work with on a daily basis. When research done at universities across Illinois is not held to the highest ethical standards, the education and training of young women and men is compromised. Expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research enables unethical education of university students, misappropriation of severely limited public funds and the death of human beings for the sake of unavaling scientific research.