Five years ago, President Bush restricted federal funding for any new human embryonic stem cell research. Many believe the objections are based soley on religious convictions, and without scientific or true ethical merit. The argument against Bush's stand has been that creating embryonic stem cells from a patient's tissues, correcting the genetic defects, and get the repaired cells back into the patient, opens the door to many cures for diseases. At one time or the other, Christopher Reeve, Michael J. Fox and Lance Armstrong have all spoken out against the federal funding ban -- as have many intelligent scientists and respected members in the medical community who see the devastating effects disease or profound physical injury can have on a patient.

Harvard University researchers are going around the federal funding ban by using only private funds and will begin research in an effort to clone human embryos as a source of stem cells. The researchers do not go into this lightly. They have visited the ethical issues at length and created strict standards for the research work and as they said, "to separate out all funding so that not a penny of federal money is spent on the effort." I honor and respect a person's personal religious beliefs -- there are many religions and many different religious beliefs to honor and respect -- but I do not feel it should ever dictate government policy -- especially if it means depriving patients of potential cures to disease.