Health Advocacy Organizations
Research using adult stem cells, stem cells derived from excess in vitro fertilized eggs that would otherwise be discarded, and stem cells containing a patient’s own DNA produced by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) are research areas necessary for advancing the new field of regenerative medicine. The advancement of stem cell research under strict ethical guidelines is endorsed by the leading health advocacy organizations including, but not limited to:
Mainstream Science
Research using adult stem cells, stem cells derived from excess in vitro fertilized eggs that would otherwise be discarded, and stem cells containing a patient’s own DNA produced by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) are research areas necessary for advancing the new field of regenerative medicine. The advancement of stem cell research under strict ethical guidelines is endorsed by the leading health advocacy organizations including, but not limited to:
Majority of Americans
Stem Cell Research, including Embryonic Stem Cell Research, has tremendous support. It is supported by all mainstream science and health organizations and the majority of Americans as evidenced by the following Harris Poll taken September 7, 2004.
Public Support for Stem Cell Research Increases to a 73 to 11% Majority
Faith-Based Groups
Religious Views
SCNT for regenerative medicine is supported by all mainstream science and health organizations and the majority of Americans, including many faith-based groups and individuals.
U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Nancy Reagan, Gerald Ford, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), Michael S. Gazzaniga of President Bush’s Bioethics Advisory Panel, 40 American Nobel Laureates, two-thirds of the American public, and all three branches of Judaism and most Christians, including the American Presbyterian church, the Episcopal church, and the majority of American Catholics, support SCNT for therapeutic use within strict ethical guidelines. TAMR, like all these groups and individuals, strongly opposes human reproductive cloning.
Public Officials
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Embryonic Stem Cell Research Was Approved by President Bush in 2001 |
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Over 200 members of US House of Representatives and over 58 US Senators actively support Stem Cell Research, including Republican leadership and nearly 3 dozen opponents of abortion, who signed a letter to the President asking him to expand his stem cell research policy.
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191 US House Members have signed on to the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2004
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Square Peg by Orrin Hatch, Chapter 11.
“the promise of regenerative medicine cuts across all fields of medicine and touches everyone who either has a chronic disease or who may develop one or who suffers a traumatic injury. If its complete potential is realized, treatments could be developed to address not only fatal and life-altering diseases but also injuries and degeneration including stroke, burns and arthritis.”
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Texas Senator Kay Baily Hutchison
“State leaders should work with Gov. Rick Perry and the Legislature to develop a stem-cell research policy that keeps Texas from being ‘left in the dust’ by California. I think that Texas needs to have a responsible, ethical policy regarding stem-cell research. I think if we are going to stay in the forefront of scientific discoveries, we are going to have to find an ethical way to keep the state-of-the-art experiments on stem cells and how they can displace unhealthy cells in people’s bodies.”
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John C. Danforth, a former United States Senator from Missouri, resigned in January 2005 as Ambassador to the United Nations. He is an Episcopal minister.
“In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the human uterus. It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and always have been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law…. Criminalizing the work of scientists doing such research would give strong support to one religious doctrine, and it would punish people who believe it is their religious duty to use science to heal the sick.” John C. Danforth, a former United States Senator from Missouri, resigned in January 2005 as Ambassador to the United Nations. He is an Episcopal minister. New York Times, March 30, 2005 OP-ED
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Secretary George Schultz
Former Secretary of State in the Reagan Whitehouse, Shultz is a Supporter of California’s Proposition 71.
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Nancy Reagan Letter.
“I’m writing, therefore, to offer my support for stem cell research and to tell you I’m in favor of new legislation to allow the ethical use of therapeutic cloning.”
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President Gerald Ford Letter.
“Therapeutic cloning, or nuclear transplantation, may have enormous potential for the treatment of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury and a vast array of other diseases and injuries. Unlike reproductive cloning, this approach will never produce a cloned human being. But it should result in the development of life-saving therapies that could improve the well-being of all Americans.”
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President Jimmy Carter Letter.
“Though I fully support banning reproductive cloning, I strongly oppose any restrictions on therapeutic cloning.”
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Congressman Jim Leach reminded Iowans of how a backward state law hurts economic development…
“It’s wrong to prevent science from helping people. It’s plain dumb to impede the growth of biotechnology and other life sciences in a state that desperately needs this economic development.”
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Mexican American Legislative Caucus letter to Gov. Perry (pdf) 34,375
“The potential benefits of regenerative medicine are profound.”
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