Washington- January 27, 2000- The National Institutes of Health has issued draft guidelines under which, for the first time in history, our federal government will officially approve and regulate the destruction of innocent human life for research purposes.
The guidelines instruct researchers in how to harvest versatile "stem cells" from living week-old human embryos, a procedure which kills the embryos. They also establish standards for harvesting similar cells from dead unborn children following induced abortions --a practice that has its own increasingly visible moral problems (see our website for reports on trafficking in fetal body parts), but is in accord with a federal law enacted in 1993. The new moral and legal frontier broached by these guidelines is the destruction of live embryos specifically for federally sponsored research --on the pretext that no one will care anyway, because these are "spare" embryos from fertility clinics that are "in excess of clinical need." Only a large volume of critical comments by taxpayers will convince federal lawmakers that people do care about this moral atrocity.
Please take a moment of your time to send the NIH a fax or email expressing your opposition to these proposed guidelines. Tell the NIH that funding this horrific work isn't even necessary: stem cells from adults, umbilical cord blood, and placentas all provide another way of doing the research without causing on the death of a human being.
Comments must be received by January 31, 2000.
Email: stemcell@mail.nih.gov Fax: (301) 402-0280
It is imperative that we speak on behalf of those who cannot!
The NIH guidelines can be viewed here: http://www.nih.gov/news/stemcell/draftguidelines.htm