The Obama Stem Cell Policy
On March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama eliminated the executive-branch restriction on spending federal tax dollars to support research that involves the destruction of human embryos. His announcement arrives at a moment when less morally problematic alternatives, such as reprogrammed adult cells, have begun to show serious potential.
The New Atlantis has long argued in defense of the embryo and in favor of pursuing such alternatives. The president’s new policy is deeply troubling in its disregard for the moral standing of nascent human life and its implicit dismissiveness of the alternatives that would respect ethical boundaries while reaping medical benefits. Highlights from recent coverage of embryos and stem cells, including the work of New Atlantis editors and contributors, appear below.
- Stem Cell Rules
Yuval Levin, National Review Online, April 17, 2009
- Setting the Record Straight
Yuval Levin, National Review Online, March 25, 2009
- Stem Cell Wrestling
Yuval Levin, National Review Online, March 24, 2009
- The Real Lessons of Stem Cells
Yuval Levin, Newsweek, March 21, 2009
- Science All Over? The Temptation in Obama's Stem Cell Policy
Yuval Levin, Washington Post, March 10, 2009
- The President Politicizes Stem Cell Research
Robert P. George and Eric Cohen, Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2009
- Down the Slippery Slope
Yuval Levin, National Review Online, March 7, 2009
A statement by several members of the President's Council on Bioethics on the misrepresentations in President Obama's announcement and the wisdom of pursuing avenues of research that do not violate ethical norms, followed by a concurring statement by Council Chairman Edmund D. Pellegrino:
- Federal Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Gilbert Meilaender, Paul McHugh, Benjamin Carson, Nicholas Eberstadt, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Alfonso Gómez-Lobo, William Hurlbut, Donald Landry, Peter Lawler, and Diana Schaub, Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, March 25, 2009
Multimedia
New Atlantis contributor Carter Snead discusses the new Obama policy on Fox News:Public Opinion
- Public Opinion and the Embryo Debates
Yuval Levin, The New Atlantis, Spring 2008
Background from The New Atlantis
- Science and the Obama Administration
Adam Keiper, Winter 2009
- The Future of Cell Biology
The Editors, Fall 2008
- ‘Less Morally Problematic Alternatives’
Yuval Levin, Summer 2007
- The First Fourteen Days of Human Life
Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, Summer 2006
- Stem Cell Spin
The Editors, Spring 2006
- The Tragedy of Equality
Eric Cohen, Fall 2004/Winter 2005
- Human Frailty and Human Dignity
Leon R. Kass, Fall 2004/Winter 2005
See Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy by senior editor Yuval Levin and In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology by editor-at-large Eric Cohen.
