72 
Ethical and Policy Developments 
eral funding while allowing the gruesome practice to continue. 
But, they point out, there is no reason to attribute to the cur- 
rent funding policy the assumption that the early embryo is 
morally equivalent to a child. In fact, they contend, the Presi- 
dent has never said that early embryos are inviolable, or are 
persons, or morally equivalent to children. While President 
Bush explained his funding policy by arguing that “it is un- 
ethical to end life in medical research,"®^ he has not sought to 
prohibit privately-funded embryonic stem cell research. This 
leads some to conclude that implicit in the President’s policy is 
either the view that the embryo has an intermediate moral 
status (worthy of serious moral consideration as a developing 
form of human life) or uncertainty about its moral status. Those 
who interpret the President’s policy in this way point out that, 
in his address to the nation on stem cell research, he spoke in 
terms of a human embryo’s “potential for life’’: 
Research on embryonic stem cells raises profound ethical 
questions, because extracting the stem cell destroys the 
embryo, and thus destroys its potential for life. Like a 
snowflake, each of these embryos is unique, with the 
unique genetic potential of an individual human being.®^ 
This, they contend, does not constitute an argument for treat- 
ing human embryos as possessed of fully human moral stand- 
ing. 
If the present policy is seen to reflect either the intermedi- 
ate or uncertain view of the moral standing of human embryos, 
these advocates argue, it is not inconsistent to withhold fed- 
eral funding, at least for now, when the medical benefits of 
stem cell research are still speculative, while permitting pri- 
vately funded embryo research to proceed. They argue that 
restricting or limiting federal funding is a reasonable way of 
registering either doubt about the moral status of the embryo, 
or the moral unease felt by someone who takes nascent human 
life seriously and does not want it used wantonly, and who 
therefore wants scientists to prove the promise of this research 
before permitting them to go further with the support of fed- 
eral funding. Indeed, they argue, this interpretation is consis- 
tent with the President’s words in his August 9^ address: 
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