Stem Cell Rules [Yuval Levin]

For eight years, opponents of the Bush stem cell policy said all they were after were funds for the use of embryos “left over” in fertility clinics, which might end up being “destroyed anyway,” and that assertions that the real goal was creation of embryos specifically for research (including such creation by human cloning) were unfair and unfounded. Last week, however, President Obama overturned the Bush rules but did not limit federal funds to those “left over” IVF embryos. Instead he left it entirely to the NIH to decide what work could and could not be funded. And today, right on cue, the New York Times editorializes that indeed the NIH should support the creation of embryos specifically for research, including through human cloning (which they are of course careful to call “somatic cell nuclear transfer.”) That sure didn’t take long.