Institute for Progressive Christianity Applauds President's Lifting of Embryonic Stem Cell Restrictions
Submitted by ipcadmin on Mon, 03/09/2009 - 20:45.
Washington DC March 9, 2009 The Institute for Progressive Christianity ("IPC') applauds President Obama's long-awaited Executive Order lifting the Bush administration's restrictions on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
According to The National Institutes of Health, embryonic stem cells "are derived are typically four or five days old and are a hollow microscopic ball of cells called the blastocyst." They are pluripotent, meaning that they "can become all cell types of the body."
On August 9, 2001 former President Bush restricted the federal funding of the research to stem cell lines available on that day and before. The administration claimed that sixty such lines were available for research when in fact twenty-two could be utilized.
IPC Director Frank L. Cocozzelli commented, "Today reason has prevailed over fear. The President has stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. He brushed aside the neoconservative-led Religious Right's often misleading arguments in opposition.
Cocozzelli, a Catholic who has LMG muscular dystrophy, and co-author of the IPC White Paper, An Unholy Alliance: How Neoconservatives and the Religious Right Have Joined Forces to Fight Stem Cell Research further elaborated:
"They ignobly acted as if to support embryonic stem cell research, were to oppose faith itself. In doing so they obfuscated the fact that many faiths and even the majority of American Catholics wanted the research federally funded. Instead, they wanted only adult stem cell research pursued, this in spite of the fact that most adult stem cell researchers support embryonic stem cell research. The researchers - unlike embryonic stem cell research opponents - understood that it is necessary for comparative analysis. In other words, to stifle embryonic stem cell research impedes adult stem cell research."
In closing, Cocozzelli observed, "President Obama chose to give hope to those of us who want to see, if given the opportunity, whether this research will live of up to even part of its potential. If it delivers even one- tenth to its touted possibilities, that will alleviate an immense amount of suffering"
Institute for Progressive Christianity
Frank L. Cocozzelli
fcocozzelli@aol.com
516-435-3800
http://www.instituteforprogressivechristianity.org
Stephen Rockwell
srockwell@instituteforprogressivechristianity.org
617-676-8352
Faith Newswire email: srockwell@instituteforprogressivechristianity.org