President Bush Promotes Embryo Adoption Over Destructive Research 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 24, 2005
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — As Congress debates competing legislation on stem cell research, President Bush met with families who have adopted frozen embryos to implant and carry to term in a pregnancy. He said such adoptions show human embryos are human life that deserves protecting.
"The families here today have either adopted or given up for adoption frozen embryos that remained after fertility treatments," the president said. "Rather than discard these embryos created during in vitro fertilization, or turn them over for research that destroys them, these families have chosen a life-affirming alternative."
"Twenty-one children here today found a chance for life with loving parents," Bush said.
While members of Congress consider legislation to overturn his limits on embryonic stem cell research funding, President Bush said such research, which requires the destruction of days-old human beings for their stem cells, forgets that human life is involved.
"In the complex debate over embryonic stem cell research, we must remember that real human lives are involved — both the lives of those with diseases that might find cures from this research, and the lives of the embryos that will be destroyed in the process," the president explained.
"The children here today are reminders that every human life is a precious gift of matchless value," he said.
Bush highlighted the work of Nightlight Christian Adoptions and the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption program, which help parents having problems becoming pregnant to adopt frozen embryos.
Nightlight’s embryo adoption program has now matched over 200 biological parents with about 140 adoptive families, resulting in the birth of 81 children so far, with more on the way.
Some of the children born in those programs attended the White House ceremony.
Zara Johnson is one of those children adopted as a frozen embryo.
"Zara could have been a science experiment – and a failed one at that. But through embryo adoption she is fulfilling the mission of every human life – to love and be loved," Droinda Bordlee, senior counsel and executive director of the Bioethics Defense Fund, said.
"The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo," Bush concluded. "Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being. And each of us started out our life this way. These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts."
Related web sites:
Cures Not Clones – https://www.curesnotclones.org
