70 
Ethical and Policy Developments 
subject and embryo research and a recognition of pre-existing 
standards in such research, rather than a contradiction of the 
fundamental commitment to avoiding any support for the de- 
struction of nascent human life. The government, they argue, 
has multiple aims in this area, and these need not undercut 
each other. In addition to discouraging the creation and use of 
embryos for purposes other than producing children, one 
commentator argues, the government also seeks to support the 
requirement for informed consent to all procedures involving 
human subjects and to discourage commercial trafficking in 
human material."® Another observer has suggested that the 
additional conditions are an expression of the fact that some 
standards for stem cell derivation did exist before August 9, 
2001, including those reflected in the Clinton administration’s 
funding guidelines."^ Even in rejecting the legitimacy of the act 
of embryo destruction and seeking to discourage it in the fu- 
ture, it is still reasonable to recognize the value of those earlier 
standards. The policy, it is argued, while establishing a new 
standard, still takes account of previous standards."" 
In response to the more general complaints of inconsis- 
tency, defenders of the policy, within and outside the admini- 
stration, have described the present policy as both principled 
and prudent. The policy, as articulated by these defenders, 
aims (at least minimally) to uphold and advance the principled 
conviction that the federal government should not offer sup- 
port or incentives for the destruction of nascent hiunan life for 
research. At the same time, they say, it seeks, as much as rea- 
sonably possible within the bounds of the principle to benefit 
from the results of embryo destruction that has already oc- 
curred and can no longer be undone."" As President Bush put it 
in announcing the policy, “This allows us to explore the prom- 
ise and potential of stem-cell research without crossing a 
fundamental moral line, by providing taxpayer funding that 
would sanction or encourage further destruction of human 
embryos that have at least the potential for life.’’"" The policy, 
argue some of its advocates, aims to put into practice the 
moral principle of not destroying nascent human life, even if it 
does not do so on every possible front, or to the greatest 
possible extent. 
PRE-PUBLICATION VERSION 
