40 
Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
up the anguished question of the moral status of human em- 
bryos. 
But the position is not only a compromise between those 
who would have the government bless and those who would 
have the government curse this activity. It is also a statement 
of a certain principle: namely, that public sanction makes a 
serious difference and ought not to be conferred lightly. While 
embryo destruction may be something that some Americans 
support and engage in, it is not something that America as a 
nation has officially supported or engaged in.* 
Of course, if the funding issue were merely a proxy for the 
larger dispute over the moral status of human embryos, then 
the present arrangement might appeal only to those who 
would protect human embryos, and it would succeed only as 
long as they were able to enact it. The argument might end 
there, with a vote-count on the question of the moral status or 
standing of human embryos. But some proponents of the pre- 
sent law suggest that the particulars and contours of the em- 
bryo research debate offer an additional rationale for that 
arrangement. Here again, it is important to remember that the 
issue in question is public funding, not permissibility. Oppo- 
nents of embryo research have in most cases acquiesced 
(likely owing to various prudential and moral factors) in nar- 
rowing the debate at the federal level to the question of fund- 
ing. They do not argue for a wholesale prohibition of embryo 
research by national legislation, even though many of them see 
such work as an abomination and even a form of homicide. In 
return, proponents of the Dickey Amendment argue that it 
would be appropriate for supporters of research to agree to do 
without federal funding in this particular field. 
On the other hand, it might reasonably be argued that part 
of living under majority rule is living with the consequences of 
sometimes being in the minority. Were the Congress to over- 
turn the current policy of withholding public funds from the 
destruction of embryos, opponents of funding for embryo re- 
search would not be alone in being compelled to pay for activi- 
ties they abhor. We all see our government do things, in our 
name, with which we disagree. Some of these might even 
* The repeated reenactment of the Dickey Amendment by the Congress may 
be taken as evidence of some support for this assertion. 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
