Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
63 
ing question solely on the basis of the merits and promise of 
the proposed biomedical research? 
We shall, in due course, review the recent arguments on 
these critical questions. But before doing so, we examine a se- 
ries of other more specific objections to the present policy. 
These arguments recognize that the current policy rests on the 
conviction that federal funds should not support or encourage 
the violation or destruction of human embryos. Rather than 
disputing this premise, a number of commentators — including 
both supporters and critics — have assessed the policy on its 
own grounds and judged it against its own claims and terms. 
As a result, several general categories of criticism of the policy 
itself have emerged. 
m. THE CHARACTER OF THE POLICY 
In addition to debating which aims ought to guide federal 
policy, many observers in the past two years have also as- 
sessed the particulars of the present funding policy, consider- 
ing them in scientific, political, and moral terms. Critics have 
generally found fault with the policy through one or more of 
three general lines of argument: that it is arbitrary, that it is 
imsustainable, and that it is inconsistent. Defenders of the pol- 
icy, meanwhile, have usually sought to counter these critics on 
these terms and to rebut these assertions and criticisms. 
A. Arbitrary 
One quite common line of argument criticizes the present 
funding policy as essentially arbitrary, because it relies on 
what is deemed a capricious cutoff date. Cells derived from 
embryos destroyed on August 9, 2001 are eligible for federal 
funding, but those obtained from embryos destroyed the next 
day are not. The only difference is the date of embryo destruc- 
tion, argue some critics, and what moral difference could that 
possibly make? If the policy of funding human embryonic stem 
cell research serves a genuine good, these commentators sug- 
gest, would it not be equally good regardless of when the cell 
lines were derived? Would it not, therefore, make sense to 
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