A federal judge last Monday issued a temporary ban on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, citing federal law that dictates taxpayer money not be used for experiments that destroy human embryos. This overturns an executive order made by President Obama last year that expanded federal funding for the research.
The scientists cried. The churches cheered. It’s the same story over and over again. The research’s legality, for the most part, is determined by the president in power and it will continue that way until the end of time. Truthfully, I think people are getting sick of the debate anyway.
The problem is that nobody can agree on when life starts. The Pope will tell you that it starts at conception. Nietzsche will tell you that it doesn’t matter because God is dead and life is meaningless. Many people will vary in between, debating the difference between the embryonic and fetal stages of development or whether the ability to feel pain denotes significant brain function.
Stem cell research has the potential to be an incredibly important scientific field with endless opportunities for our future. Yet, at the same time, I can understand why people are opposed to embryonic stem cell research, so who am I to force them to pay for its funding?
Maybe if the government started to support more legislation like the Cures Can Be Found Act of 2009, people would spend less time being angry at being forced to fund something they don’t agree with and more time looking on the Internet for research they would agree to individually fund. The previously mentioned bill would provide tax credits against income for the donation of umbilical cord blood, among other things. The less scientifically inclined might see this and wonder why umbilical cord blood is significant to stem cell research.
Many people don’t realize how important umbilical cord blood is. This is very unfortunate, considering that the umbilical cord isn’t nearly as controversial as embryos are.
A 2003 study performed at the University of South Florida College of Medicine found that, when intravenously injected into rats, human cord blood-derived cells were observed only in injured areas, meaning that the stem cells actually found their way through the rats’ bodies to the area needed to be healed. It’s almost magical.
Without mandated federal funding, though, this debate goes away. Voluntary donations to stem cell research will lead to more scientific awareness among the general public, and also more stable funding to researchers despite who the president is at any given time. People will always disagree on things, but federally subsidizing this heavily debated research does nothing but create annoyances and unnecessary political problems for our government to solve while they should be busy finding ways to pay back the debt.
Reach Brian at brian.p.anderson@asu.edu
