An Ethical Defense of Federal Funding for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Abstract

Should the Federal Government fund human embryonic stem cell research? In addressing this question and answering it affirmatively, I will draw from testimony I was asked to prepare for the Hearing on "Stem Cell Research" conducted by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, on September 5, 2001. Even though I did not testify on that occasion on behalf of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), on which I served until its demise at the end of September 2001, I drew, then as well as now, on the NBAC's 1999 report on Ethical Issues in Human Stem Cell Research, which, as a commissioner, I helped to prepare and also endorsed.