In a prime-time address, President Bush said he backed limited federal funding for stem cell research.

That's right, the President said, this is a quote, "the research could help cure brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and whatever it is I have."
— Conan O'Brien

Stem cell research:  President Bush has chosen to ban all federal money from being used in most stem cell research.  When this happens, politically, ALL research on stem cells gets defunded.  No bureaucrat is willing to award money for research that the higher ups have decided is taboo, even if the rules currently allow it.  That is because a key word search for 'stem cells' will lead to their decisions being scrutinized.  And it is safer to say 'no,' than to face an examination of one's work.

The stem cell research that is morally objectionable to anyone who opposes ALL abortions, is basically taking either stored fertilized human eggs, or unfertilized human eggs that have been collected and stored frozen, usually from women seeking infertility treatment.  For whatever reason, the woman no longer wants these eggs (hopefully the eggs are the left overs from successful births), and so they will be discarded.  If necessary, these eggs are fertilized with sperm in a test tube, the fertilized egg is allowed to divide several generations producing a ball of several dozen undifferentiated cells (meaning these cells have not turned into specialized cells that will later become skin, nerves, muscle, etc.).   These cells are teased apart, treated in a manner to promote continued replication as cells that remain undifferentiated.  So in effect while these are human cells, they are little different from blood in the sense that these cells can no longer be grown into embryos with any more possibility than blood or other differentiated cells [which all have some potential to be turned into an embryo].

My position is that no government money should be used for scientific research period, including stem cell research.  But all stem cell research should be legal.  Government should stay out of science. 

The value of stem cells is that through chemical or other means, that still need to be worked out hence the research part, these undifferentiated cells can be induced to replicate and turn into regular tissue.  In some cases, stem cells have been able to be experimentally placed into areas of lab animals whose tissues have been damaged (e.g., Parkinson's dementia damage to the brain) and the stem cells turn into replacement and fully functional specialized tissue repairing the damaged area (in the example above, the brain).  This offers hope that literally millions of lives can be extended that have suffered here before untreatable damage from brain injuries, heart damage, diabetes, etc.  This is not pie in the sky.  The results have been very remarkable.

The morality though is that human embryos are being created.  They are very early stage embryos, that are literally little clumps of cells, nothing we would recognize as human by sight.  Completely lacking a nervous system.  Indeed, it would take lab tests to determine the cells were of human origin. 

But there is a slippery slope argument [PDF link, see Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D.] as well:  If we allow very early human embryo experimentation, then at what point will it stop? 

Certainly, stem cell research will not go experimenting beyond this early clump of cells.  It has been clearly established that once cells have differentiated (started down the pathway towards whatever tissue they will ultimately become (i.e., specialized tissue such as skin, nerve, muscle, eyes, kidney, etc.), while they can often be persuaded to return to their undifferentiated form, they prove less useful than a cell that has remained undifferentiated.  Indeed, "stem cells" can be retrieved from consenting adults.  While their cells turn out to be not as useful as those from undifferentiated human embryos, they are nonetheless theoretically capable of producing a child under the appropriate experimental conditions.  Is experimenting with these cells morally objectionable?  They do not seem to be.  But what is the difference?  [There are some, but the arguments seem subtle to me .]

Other scientists though may experiment with embryos beyond this stage, to try to "improve" the human stock, or create human worker bees (the Deltas and the Epsilons of Brave New World fame), or even brainless organ donors.  But this is another discussion....