38 
Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
vide such material support, even for activities protected by the 
Constitution, let alone for those permitted but not guaran- 
teed.^^ The affording of most federal funding is entirely op- 
tional, and the choice to make such an offer is therefore laden 
with moral and political meaning, well beyond its material 
importance. In the age of government funding, the political 
system is sometimes called upon to decide not only the lowest 
standards of conduct, but also the highest standards of legiti- 
macy and importance. When the nation decides an activity is 
worth its public money, it declares that the activity is valued, 
desired, and favored. 
The United States has long held the scientific enterprise in 
such high regard. Since the middle of the twentieth century, 
the federal government, with the strong support of the Ameri- 
can people, has funded scientific research to the tune of many 
hundreds of billions of dollars. The American taxpayer is by far 
the greatest benefactor of science in the world, and the Ameri- 
can public greatly values the contributions of science to hu- 
man knowledge, human health, and human happiness. And 
we Americans have overwhelmingly been boosters of medical 
science and medical progress, deeming them worthy of sup- 
port for moral as well as material reasons. 
But this enthusiasm for medical science is not without its 
limits. As already noted, we attach restrictions to federally 
funded research, for instance to protect human subjects. In 
fact at times we even use funding to place restrictions on 
research that might otherwise not be constrained. Indeed, 
federal funding sometimes serves as a means by which private 
research can be subjected to critical standards, since institu- 
tions that receive federal funds are often inclined (and given 
strong administrative incentives) to abide by the prescribed 
ethical standards throughout all of their activities, not only 
those directly receiving public dollars. Some supporters of 
funding therefore argue that extending public money to re- 
search is the most effective means of making certain that 
nearly all researchers, public and private, adhere to basic 
standards of ethics and safety. Public funding also requires 
researchers to make their work available to the public and for 
critical review by their peers, and it may encourage some 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
