32 
Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
life, including early life, is biologically human, genetically 
distinct and valuable/^* 
While expressing a desire to advance medical research, this 
argument describes a line that such research should not cross, 
and therefore past which funding should not be offered. That 
line, in this context, is the destruction of a human embryo for 
research purposes. The Bush administration thus appears to 
share the view that underlies both the word and spirit of the 
Dickey Amendment. In its approach to the stem cell issue it 
has sought to answer a question that differs, subtly but sig- 
nificantly, from that formulated by the previous administration: 
How can embryonic stem cell research, conducted in accor- 
dance with basic research ethics, be maximally aided within 
the bounds of the principle that nascent human life should not 
be destroyed for research? 
In seeking to answer that question, the Bush administration 
(like the Clinton administration) had to take account of the 
existing situation and — as always in such instances — ^to mix 
prudential demands and opportunities with an effort at princi- 
pled judgment. Given the existence of some human embryonic 
stem cell lines, derived from human embryos that had already 
been destroyed, the administration determined that it might 
not simply have to choose between funding research that 
relies on the ongoing destruction of embryos (and therefore 
tacitly supporting and encouraging such destruction by paying 
for the work that immediately follows it) and funding no hu- 
man embryonic stem cell research at all. The decision regard- 
ing the funding of research on already-derived human embry- 
* Using similar language, but speaking even more unambiguously, President 
Bush reiterated his ethical view of the destruction of human embryos for 
medical research in a speech on human cloning legislation, saying, “I believe 
all humcin cloning is wrong, and both forms of cloning ought to be harmed, 
for the following reasons. First, anything other than a total ban on human 
cloning would be unethical. Research cloning would contradict the most 
fundamental principle of medical ethics, that no human life should be ex- 
ploited or extinguished for the benefit of another. Yet a law permitting 
research cloning, while forbidding the birth of a cloned child, would require 
the destruction of nascent human life." ("Remarks by the President on 
Human Cloning Legislation," as made available by the White House Press 
Office, April 10, 2002.) 
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