Current Federal Law and Policy 
39 
degree of responsibility not necessarily encouraged by com- 
mercial endeavors.* 
In addition to conditions attached to government funding of 
research, law sometimes erects specific limits on certain prac- 
tices that might be medically beneficial. For example, we put 
limits on some practices that might offer life-saving benefits, 
such as the buying and selling of organs for transplantation, 
currently prohibited under the National Organ Transplant Act. 
Also, as in the present case, many Americans and their con- 
gressional representatives have moral reasons for opposing 
certain lines of research or clinical practice, for example those 
that involve the exploitation and destruction of human fetuses 
and embryos. 
The two sides of the embryo research debate tend to differ 
sharply on the fundamental moral significance of the activity in 
question. One side believes that what is involved is morally 
abhorrent in the extreme, while the other believes embryo 
research is noble or even morally obligatory, and worthy of 
praise and support. It would be very difficult for the govern- 
ment to find a middle ground between these two positions, 
since the two sides differ not only on what should or should 
not be done, but also on the moral premises from which the 
activity should be approached. 
To this point, the federal government has pursued a policy 
whereby it does not explicitly prohibit embryo research but 
also does not officially condone it, encourage it, or support it 
with public funds (though state governments have often taken 
more active roles, in both directions, as detailed in Appendix 
E). This approach, again, combines prudential demands v\hth 
moral concerns. It has allowed the political system to avoid 
banning embryo research against the wishes of those who 
believe it serves an important purpose, while not compelling 
those citizens who oppose it to fund it with their tax money. 
This approach is also based, at least in part, on the conviction 
that debates over the federal budget are not the place to take 
Indeed, some even argue that the terms and conditions set for federal 
funding of research could be defined in such a way as not only to subject 
private research to general stsindards but also to help influence the eventual 
distribution of the products of that research to all those in need, or to serve 
other goods deemed publicly worthy. 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
