While Rep. DeGette’s Stem Cell Research Advancement Act (H.R. 4808) would authorize taxpayer dollars for research involving the killing of human embryos, it goes much further. Human cloning would also become legitimate. Under a deceptively written definition, human cloning would be permitted as long as a clone is not implanted. Fittingly, many call it the clone and kill bill.
Yet the congressional tug-of-war on a preferred route to finding treatments to diseases and other ailments using stem cells helps to make the case for another bill, one that has lingered in Congress since its introduction. The Patients First Act (H.R. 877) would do exactly as its title suggests: put patients ahead of politics, making the treatment of patients—not the pursuit of what’s been dead-end, unethical research.
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