WASHINGTON - US Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton said last week that if elected she would sign executive order reversing President Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
“I will lift the current ban on ethical stem cell research,” pledged the New York senator to the crowd at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington.Although Bush did not ban stem cell research, per se, the president had issued an executive order in August 2001 to limit federal funding for research involving human embryonic stems cells to cell lines already in existence at the time.
Clinton called the withstanding limitations on stem cell funding “a ban on hope.”
In her speech, the former first lady also criticised the Bush administration for declaring “war on science.” Clinton said that by “ignoring or manipulating science,” the administration let conservative political ideology trump scientific evidence, citing administration officials who have questioned scientific evidence on global warming, suggested the correlation between abortion and breast cancer, and required prescription for the morning-after birth control pill.
“When I am president, I will end this assault on science," declared Clinton. "America will once again be the innovation nation.”
In response, Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said Clinton’s arguments are misleading.
"Hillary Clinton says she will bring integrity to science, but on the campaign trail she manipulates basic mathematics in her attempts to explain how she will pay for hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending,” he said.
Forcing taxes on hardworking families and business to support her proposals “amount to the real ban on hope,” added the Republican Party’s spokesman.
He also pointed out that when Clinton’s husband was president, there was no funding for stem cell research.
“In her rush to attack the president, Hillary Clinton has conveniently forgotten that George W. Bush is the only president who has ever made federal money available for stem cell research,” said Diaz, according to a Reuters report.
The central controversy in stem cell research has stemmed from the debate over whether destroying a human embryo amounts to killing a human life.
