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Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
The question of federal funding routinely implicates questions 
about the nation’s moral priorities among permissible activities. And 
the question of moral priorities in politics is not so simple as a 
question of good or bad; rather it is a question of better or worse. 
One consequence of this is that in sorting out funding decisions it is 
not a matter of one side introducing moral considerations. Most of 
the time, both sides in disputes over policy are of necessity engaged 
in making moral arguments. 
This is true, and to an extraordinary degree, in the stem cell 
controversy. Both sides-those who wish to defend the rights of 
nascent human life, and those who wish to defend unfettered 
scientific research directed at the relief of human suffering through 
the cure of deadly disease-defend moral principles. To make matters 
more difficult, both sides tend to defend those principles in their 
absolute form. While the president’s position attempts to give weight 
to both sides’ principles, both sides, because of the passion with 
which each holds its principle, are dissatisfied. However, insofar as 
the president’s approach reflects that adopted by the Dickey 
Amendment, it follows a determination made by a majority of the 
people’s representatives, and with that both sides should be 
satisfied. But they aren’t. 
But the dissatisfaction of both sides takes a recognizable form. In 
general, because moral principles are so frequently at stake in the 
fight for federal taxpayer dollars, funding decisions create bitterness. 
This truer still, as in the stem cell debate, when the moral principles 
are wielded in their absolute form, so that both sides can claim 
defeat. If funding is withheld, those who believe the activity is 
worthy can claim that their tax dollars, which they contribute in the 
hope that they will serve the good of the country, are being held back 
from what they deem a deserving or even overriding moral purpose. 
This is the position taken by many scientists and progressives with 
regard to the limitations imposed by the President’s policy. If funding 
is provided, those who believe the activity is immoral can claim that 
their tax dollars are being used to advance a cause they believe is 
unworthy, or even abhorrent. This is the position taken my some 
social conservatives who believe that the limitations imposed by the 
President’s policy did not go nearly far enough and pave the way, 
sooner rather than later to the routine creation and destruction of 
human embryos for biomedical research. Typically, both sides make 
moral claims, and one or the other-and in the really tough cases such 
as stem cell policy, both sides-will have to live with the fact that 
their moral principles are being rejected (if not assaulted) by the 
government, in their own name and with their own tax dollars. 
PRE-PUBLICATION VERISON 
