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Ethical and Policy Developments 
contend, might even make embryonic stem cell research (or, at 
the very least, publicly funded embryonic stem cell research)^®^ 
unnecessary, if it proves sufficiently useful.* 
In response, however, others point out that adult stem cell 
research already receives about ten times the amount of fed- 
eral funding apportioned to human embryonic stem cell re- 
search. Critics also argue that embryonic stem cells may pos- 
sess unique advantages over adult stem cells, just as (in some 
circumstances) the opposite may be the case, and that there- 
fore both avenues, as well as research using stem cells derived 
from fetal tissue, should be pursued simultaneously.^®^ And 
they contend that opponents of embryonic stem cell research 
have oversold the promise of adult stem cells so that the public 
might come to see embryonic stem cell research as unneces- 
sary.^®^ In the next chapter, we examine some of the scientific 
facts regarding adult and embryonic stem cells, but in the con- 
text of the ethical and political debates, the distinctions be- 
tween them have been quite important and prominent. 
In these ways, the controversial possibility of scientific al- 
ternatives, as well as concerns about the health of American 
culture and democracy, the honesty of a political debate that 
touches on the hopes and fears of many who are suffering, and 
the bigger picture of health-care politics all impinge upon the 
question of federal funding of human embryonic stem cell re- 
search. 
VI. CONCLUSION 
Participants in the public debate surroimding human em- 
bryonic stem cell research and the administration’s funding 
policy have addressed themselves to many complicated and 
difficult ethical matters: the character of the moral question at 
* In 1999, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission stated that "In our 
judgment, the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following 
infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alterna- 
tives cue available for advancing the research,” though the commission did 
not conclude that adult stem cells were sufficiently shown to offer such an 
alternative. (National Bioethics Advisory Commission, Ethical Issues in Hu- 
man Stem cell research, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1999, 
P. 53.) 
PRE-PUBLICATION VERSION 
