A Bitter Loss
Pro-life supporters will be bitterly disappointed.

By NRO Staff
August 9, 2001 6:50 p.m.

ssuming that reports are accurate that President Bush will endorse federal funding for limited embryonic stem-cell research tonight, his pro-life supporters will be bitterly disappointed — and have good cause to be.

Since the Hyde Amendment over 20-years ago, and throughout both Democratic- and Republican-controlled congresses, there has been a strict prohibition on federal funding of the destruction of the earliest forms of life. Now, thanks to Bush, this fire-wall has been breached. Another abortion-funding issue that might now, logically, be jeopardized is the Mexico City policy which prohibits funding of international organizations that perform or promote abortions, which Bush supports and which the House narrowly upheld in May (218-210).

It is important to remember that the deep-pocketed bio-tech industry could carry on embryonic stem-cell research with or without federal funding. They want the federal funds only as a moral stamp of approval. Bush, to his discredit, has just bestowed it on them.