Posted on: Friday, August 10, 2001

Editorial
Bush stem cell plan elegant and cautious

President Bush's long-awaited speech last night on stem cell research was graceful and politically courageous.

His decision — to allow limited federally funded stem cell research to proceed — will hardly please everyone. But considering the enormous political, ethical, medical and scientific issues involved in this matter, that might have been an impossible goal.

The reasoning used by Bush to come to his decision was both elegant and tricky. Fundamentally, he held to the principle that it is wrong to destroy life — or even potential life in the form of embryonic cells — for purposes of medical research.

But he pointed out that in about 60 cases, that decision has already been made. That is, there are about 60 cases where stem cells have already been extracted, thus destroying the potential embryo.

The medical advances that might be gained by continuing to study those cells far outweigh any value to be found by ending federal research funding on moral grounds, Bush suggested.

Some scientists will be unhappy that this cutting edge medical research will be so limited. The line Bush drew is very conservative — even more limited than that proposed by some of his fellow pro-life conservatives in Congress.

A strong case may quickly develop for the harvesting of additional "lines" of human stem cells as the science of this process progresses.

That's why it is crucial that the new stem cell oversight committee to be appointed by Bush be free of partisan or political baggage. We must move forward on sound scientific and ethical grounds, not on the basis of politics or emotion.

The most important part of Bush's statement yesterday is in what he did not say, did not do. There were fears that he would order a complete halt to federal support for stem cell research.

This would simply have driven the effort underground and into the hands of the for-profit community and would have needlessly delayed work on what may some day be a profound medical breakthrough.

For the moment, the president has recognized the wondrous potential of stem cell research and has agreed to let it proceed in at least a limited way. That is an important step in the right direction.