Wisconsin Governor Wants Democrats to Back Destructive Research
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 18, 2004
Santa Fe, NM (LifeNews.com) — Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (D) is lobbying national Democrats to approve language in the party’s platform endorsing the use of embryonic stem cells in scientific research. He hopes the party will take an official position seeking to reverse the limits President Bush has placed on taxpayer funding of the destructive research.
Doyle testified before the Democratic National Committee in New Mexico today. He claims the research, which involves the cloning and killing of unborn children days after fertilization, will help find cures for millions of Americans, like his mother, who suffers from Parkinson’s.
The governor also wants the Democratic Party to support the creation of additional embryonic stem cell lines for researchers to use.
"I know it’s too late for my mother, but I’ve seen what it did to her and the thought that we have the potential cure in our grasps and we’re not following it is very frustrating to me because I don’t want to see other people have to go through that," Doyle said in a conference call with reporters, according to an Associated Press report.
"We shouldn’t stand in the way of medical science. The Democratic Party should go clearly on record to overturn President Bush’s thoughtless and irrational ban," Doyle said.
But President Bush isn’t likely to change his mind anytime soon on the funding limitations, according to a spokesman.
"The president came up with a policy that will allow us to explore the promise of stem-cell research, and do so in a way that doesn’t cross a certain moral threshold that he set," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said in a White House briefing on Monday.
McClellan said that President Bush still believed the policy he created in an August 2001 executive order is still the right one.
"The president doesn’t believe we should be creating life for the sole purpose of destroying life," McClellan explained.
Pro-life advocates argue that embryonic stem cell research has been conducted and not been as successful as research employing adult stem cells.
No patients have been cured of any diseases as a result of embryonic stem cell research while adult stem cells have already proven effective in clinical trials in reducing the effects of some diseases and conditions.
"Ethical research, using stem cells from adults, is much closer to producing useable therapies," National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson told LifeNews.com.
"President Bush deserves strongly commendation for refusing to allow the government to cross a fundamental ethical line by supporting research that would kill human embryos, which is what John Kerry and some others are demanding," Johnson added.
The University of Wisconsin was the first major university to use private funding for embryonic stem cell research. Now the list includes Harvard University, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ACTION: Contact Governor Doyle with your thoughts. Go to https://www.wisgov.state.wi.us for information.
