Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It?

Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

The amendment says, in part: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

Found in Section 509 of Title V of the omnibus bill (at page 280 of the 465-page document), the federal funding ban not only prohibits the government from providing tax dollars to support research that kills or risks injury to a human embryo, it also mandates that the government use an all-inclusive definition of “human embryo” that encompasses any nascent human life from the moment that life comes into being, even if created in a laboratory through cloning, in vitro fertilization or any other means.

“For the purposes of this section,” says the law, “the term ‘human embryo or embryos’ includes any organism … that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

2009-03-14T17:51:46Z

"Because he didn't read the fine print."

Apparently he doesnt read anything he signs his name to.

tnfarmgirl2009-03-14T18:19:17Z

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What happened to the transparency in government he promised-

I thought he was going to post bills on line at the Whitehouse for the public to read for 5 days before he signed them.
Heck, not only do we not get to read them but he doesn't either.

Anonymous2009-03-14T18:10:56Z

see saw . he didn;t read the fine print of what he singed. had we better go through all the other things he put his john hancock to. my god what a leader. what;s he do just sign anything that passes his desk guess he didn;t read the stimulus either. that will be next when this all comes to a crash end. oh I didn;t read where this or that was in there. give me a freaking break, this man is jeckel and hide. how about the stem cell did he read that? Not a day goes by with out some blunder or a terrible plan comes up. I can just hear the democrats saying well do you read everything? you bet your boots I read everything I sign. and you are saying dubya.any fool can figure he is getting guff from some of the senators and doesn;t want the heat. just another lie barry is telling. tell ir to a democrat they will believe you. some one with a brain won;t. Barry cannot take heat especially when he;s never sure of what he;s doing. wonder how the terriost is digesting with them? Poor ignorant man. I;d feel sorry for him if he wasn;t so dangerous.

Boss H2009-03-14T18:10:16Z

guess how fast that will be stripped from that bill.

more right-wing games.
This is why there should be a ocnvention designed about how bill are written, and any part of it that violates that convention should be nulllified.

from your link:
<<The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.>>

Jacob W2009-03-14T17:59:05Z

I find that very interesting. I wonder what he is up to? Seems like another way of "keeping a campaign promise" while not keeping a campaign promise. If the report is true, and I have no reason to suppose it isn't, then there will still be a moratorium on embryonic stem cell research using federal funds. But Obama can still say he repealed Bush's Executive Order.

This guy is pretty slippery. He has found another way to vote "present" on a controversial issue.

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Anonymous2009-03-15T00:35:18Z

Dickey-Wicker

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