Washington D.C., Aug 23, 2010 / 16:19 pm
Pro-life groups lauded the decision of a federal court ruling on Monday which prevents the Obama administration from carrying out its embryonic stem cell research policy. One legal fund reacted by saying, the “American people should not be forced to pay for experiments – prohibited by federal law – that destroy human life.”
The ruling comes after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued new guidelines last year that permitted federal funding for research on stem cell lines that had already been created.
On August 23, however, a federal judge concluded that the policy likely violates a federal law known as the “Dickey/Wicker Amendment.” The amendment has been part of the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every year since 1996.
The amendment bars federal funding for the creation of a human embryo for research purposes as well as for research in which a human embryo or embryos are “destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”