48 
Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
be used to encourage the exploitation or destruction of nascent 
human life, even if scientific and medical benefits might come 
from such acts. 
3. The principle underlying the desire to offer funding: 
That efforts to heal the sick and the injured are of great na- 
tional importance and should be vigorously supported, pro- 
vided that they respect important moral boundaries. 
4. The significance of federal funding: That federal funding 
constitutes a meaningful positive statement of national ap- 
proval and encouragement, which should be awarded only 
v\hth care, particularly in cases where the activity in question 
arouses significant public moral opposition. 
The significance of the policy is best understood in light of 
these key elements. Its soimdness is most reasonably meas- 
ured against them and against the policy’s implementation by 
the National Institutes of Health. 
Though the prudential and principled considerations raised 
in this chapter governed the formulation of the policy, or at 
least defined its articulation by its advocates and authors, 
these are not the only terms by which federal funding policy 
might be conceived or measured. In the next chapter we pre- 
sent an overview of the ethical and policy debates that have 
raged for the past two years around both the wisdom of the 
present policy and the fundamental issues at stake in human 
embryonic stem cell research. 
PRE-PUBLICATION VERSION 
