US Judge: funding ESC research is same as funding the destruction of embryos

Bush was attempting to fund the research without being in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, signed into law by President Clinton, which states that federal dollars cannot go to the destruction of human embryos.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment, as I have stated before, is a very important piece of legislation that stands in the way of American tax dollars being used for the creation and destruction of human embryos solely for research purposes.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment states:

SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--

        (1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
        (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [1](42 U.S.C. 289g(b)) (Title 42, Section 289g(b), United States Code).

    (b) For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

In 2009 the Obama administration, by Executive Order, removed the funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research put in place by President Bush.  Our tax dollars cannot go to the actual destruction of human embryos, but Obama's policy creates an incentive for said destruction by paying for research on newly created ESC lines....from freshly destroyed embryos.

Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, today wrote a temporary injunction against Obama's funding rules saying that they are in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  From the New York Times:

The judge ruled that the Obama administration’s policy was illegal because the administration’s distinction between work that leads to the destruction of embryos — which cannot be financed by the federal government under the current policy — and the financing of work using stem cells created through embryonic destruction was meaningless. In his ruling, he referred to embryonic stem cell research as E.S.C.

“If one step or ‘piece of research’ of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,” wrote Judge Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.

In other words, the neat lines that the government had drawn between the process of embryonic destruction and the results of that destruction are not valid, the judge ruled....

The Obama administration said that its rules abided by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because the federal money would be used only once the embryonic stem cells were created but would not finance the process by which embryos were destroyed. The judge disagreed, writing that embryonic stem cell research “necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.” 

Judge Lamberth is correct, funding an embryonic stem cell line that is created by necessarily destroying a human embryo is by default funding the destruction of that embryo.

Where this puts the state of the funding of embryonic stem cell research is anyone's guess.  What I am sure of is a new assault on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment by lawmakers like Diane DeGette (D-Co), who, without any real evidence, is a true believer in embryonic stem cell research.  

Tomorrow there will be new calls to repeal Dickey-Wicker.  But without the Dickey-Wicker Amendment our tax dollars would surely go to cloning and destroying human embryos for research.  It is the last defense against a taxed funded Brave New World.

Keep your eye (and your prayers) on this one!  I'll make sure to let you know when it is time to contact your representative and urge them to uphold the Dickey-Wicker Amendment