For eight years, President George Bush proudly displayed in the Oval Office a bust of Sir Winston Churchill on loan from Great Britain. As a gesture of goodwill, the British government offered to let President Obama keep the statue during his term as a symbol of our longstanding friendship. Obama declined, shipping the bust back to England--and with it, the reminder of Churchill's great wisdom. It was he who warned that if evil prevails "all that we have known and cared for will sink into a new Dark Age, made more sinister...by the lights of perverted science."Today, that "perverted science" took root in America in a powerful new way, as President Obama tore down the wall between the federal government and embryonic stem cell experiments. By executive order, he took the first step in overturning the restrictions on taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research. His decision will allow government agencies to use federal money to encourage experiments on innocent human life, abolishing a ban that Bush put in place in 2001.
Supporters of the decision are quick to point out that Americans won't be financing the death of embryos. Although we may not be funding the killing, we are funding the killers. For now, the one law that prevents Obama from using taxpayer dollars to fund the destruction of embryos directly is still in place. The Dickey-Wicker amendment, approved by Congress every year since 1996, bans the use of federal funds to create human embryos. Unfortunately, even that safeguard could be in jeopardy under the liberal majority. As with the other pro-life riders, Dickey-Wicker must survive the appropriations process--a feat that could now be monumentally more difficult.
Obama's decision puts the government in a business which is not only unethical but also medically unnecessary. As recently as last week, researchers announced that they had successfully turned ethically created cells into the neurons that break down in Parkinson's disease. The week before, scientists produced evidence that they had treated Parkinson's in a patient with his own adult stem cells. Almost daily, researchers are celebrating new breakthroughs without compromising a single human life. Over 70 diseases and conditions have already been treated through adult stem cells, helping patients overcome everything from juvenile diabetes to heart disease. There is a common misconception that ESC research hasn't yielded these same results because it's not legal. It is. Only federal funding has been restricted. Private, commercial, and even state ESC experiments continue to no avail. That's why the ESC community is so desperate for federal funding. Many of the private ESC financiers see the method as an expensive failure. Even Dr. James Thomson, who first grew human ESC in 1998, has pulled his resources from embryos and invested in induced pluripotent (or iPS) cells, because, apart from the satisfying the moral dilemma, these cells are easier and cheaper to reproduce.
While the Obama administration and its supporters claim to be on the cutting-edge of science, the new President is pursing old technology. And thanks to the latest stimulus package, he will have at least $8 billion to do so. In a clever political move, Obama put the money in place at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the second "bailout," then moved ahead with rescinding Bush's restrictions. As he stated today, it will be up to NIH to decide in the next 120 days on the guidelines for ESC research.
Of course, scientists will lobby to obtain the money without strings or congressional oversight. According to the White House, their wish may be granted in the form of a presidential memo which Obama released today that seeks to insulate scientists from political accountability. In instances like this one, a lack of transparency is unacceptable, particularly when taxpayers are footing the bill. Harold Varmus, who co-chairs the President's Council on Science and Technology, defended the idea. "This is consistent with the President's determination to use sound scientific practice... instead of dogma in developing federal policy." Is it dogma or discipline? I guess that depends on your worldview. Are they restrictions or protections? Research or experiments? In this brave new world of commodifying human life, we should all be grateful for moral restraints. Please contact your leaders and urge them to uphold the ones that still exist. Urge them to right Obama's wrong by voting for the Patients' First Act. Instead of asking taxpayers to fund the destruction of life, this bipartisan bill would promote stem cell research that is making progress on principle.
Once again the California Supreme Court displayed a total lack of judicial restraint today when it denied a request to put the creation of same-sex "marriage" on hold until Californians go to the polls in November. As we reported yesterday, the petition was certified with far more signatures than California requires, placing on the November ballot a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Refusal to "stay" the decision sets up a tangled legal web in which potentially thousands of same-sex "marriages" may be legally unrecognizable when and if the amendment is approved by voters. Homosexual activists have set the stage for legal theater and will tell voters that it's up to them to prevent it by playing along with the court's creation. Voters in California must realize that the court's irresponsibility does not negate their responsibility to provide the needed checks and balances to the court by upholding the historic and biblical definition of marriage for the good of all society.
When Congress adjourned for Memorial Day recess, marriage was in disarray, gas prices were soaring, circuit courts sat empty, and our troops were still waiting for funding to replenish supplies. Now, fresh off a holiday weekend in which most families paid $4 a gallon to drive to neighborhood barbecues, American patience has worn thin. Imagine the frustration this week, as Congress returned to work--not on judges, marriage, or the war supplemental bill--but on changing the weather. By a 74-14 vote, the Senate agreed to devote days to the Lieberman-Warner legislation on global warming. Desperate to prove their environmental mettle, liberals are fighting for a policy that would bankrupt the economy and burden American taxpayers. The leadership says its goal is to slash CO2 emissions by almost 20 percent in 12 years, but conservatives argue the cost to American businesses and taxpayers far outweighs the negligible climate benefit. The bill's 500 pages are a complicated mess of distorted science, pork projects, and a tax-and-trade solution that will send U.S. jobs overseas and result in the most massive expansion of the federal government since the New Deal. In just 10 years, the tax burden to American families would skyrocket by $1 trillion. The average American would face higher heating and cooling bills, more pain at the pump, and expensive consumer products. From the less fortunate, the bill saps even more. As Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) points out in the Wall Street Journal, the poorest Americans already spend almost a fifth of their monthly budget on energy. By 2030, gas prices could climb anywhere from 45 cents to $1, and the U.S. economy would be on the hook for an extra $4.8 trillion. And for what? Even environmental advocates admit that in the end these concessions may do nothing to affect the earth's climate. After 40 years of Lieberman-Warner, the most that the Environmental Protection Agency is willing to promise is a one percent reduction in CO2 emissions. To hardworking Americans who are struggling to provide for their children, this entire debate is baffling. Sen. Inhofe, who has fought this global warming hysteria since 2003, challenged his colleagues to get back to business. "Will you dare stand on the Senate floor in these uncertain economic times and vote in favor of significantly increasing the price of gas at the pump, losing millions of American jobs, creating a huge new bureaucracy and raising taxes by record amounts?" Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this bill is that the evidence is still very inconclusive about the climate threat. If anything is heating up, it's marriage. This Congress is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the real crises facing this nation as they refuse to intervene. 
The weeks leading up to June 16 in California are proving to be anxious ones for both sides of the marriage debate. On that Monday, the state Supreme Court will announce whether homosexual pairs can wed immediately or whether California will hold off on implementing its decision until voters cast their ballots on the marriage protection amendment in November. While homosexual activists are already claiming victory, pro-marriage allies from across the nation are bolstering the court's case for "staying" the ruling. The attorneys general of nine states, all of whom have a stake in the outcome of the June decision, urged the justices not to instigate same-sex "marriage" until the November election. In a strong showing, the attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah echoed our concern that a premature walk down California's aisle could mean legal bedlam in several states. Unlike Massachusetts, California law allows couples from other states to obtain marriage licenses. If out-of-state couples exchange vows before November, then travel home and sue their home state for recognition, American courts will be tied up for years trying to sort out what was preventable chaos. For the 26 states with marriage protection amendments, homosexual activists face an uphill battle even if the June 16 outcome is favorable to them. Last week, we witnessed the potency of a marriage amendment in Oregon when a federal court threw out a legal challenge to the state's definition of marriage. On Friday, a Wisconsin court followed with a second blow to same-sex "marriage" by dismissing a lawsuit to overturn the Badger State's marriage amendment. While everyone from Macy's bridal registry to New York Gov. David Paterson (D) is trying to accommodate same-sex weddings, public opinion is still opposed to gay "marriage." On Thursday, the Pew Research Center announced the results of a new poll in which "28 percent of voters view the issue as 'very important' in their decision about who [sic] to vote for in the fall." Despite cries that the issue is losing traction, Pew's research shows that the resistance to same-sex "marriage" has held steady since 2004. This is certain to trouble most Democrats leading up to the general election, particularly since large pockets of that opposition reside in one of their most reliable voting blocs--black and Hispanic women. As Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute says, "...Democrats always say social issues have gone away and they never do. They [haven't] gone away since 1968."
