Senator Sam Brownback had placed a hold on her nomination, but then withdrew it after meeting with her. Her nomination to the post has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Leads World in Funding Research that Kills Human Embryos 
The decision by President Bush to confine scientific research on human embryos to those who were killed prior to August 9, 2001, opened the door to massive moral and ethical bankruptcy, but in financial terms, the institutions doing the research are making tons of money.

The Culture of Life Foundation, in its Culture & Cosmos fax report of June 29, 2005, reveals that the United States is leading the world in funding for research that kills tiny embryonic human beings.

"The Future of Stem Cells," a 35-page special report produced by the Financial Times and Scientific American magazine and inserted into copies of the June 20 edition of the Financial Times, contained an analysis of the status of embryo destructive research in nine countries and the European Union. According to the report the U.S. far outpaces other countries in terms of funding for embryo destructive research. Private funding for such research is $200 million and the U.S. federal government provides $24 million for research on embryonic stem cell lines that were created before August 2001.

California and New Jersey have already committed to providing more than $3 billion in funding and four states are considering an additional $1.775 billion. By comparison, in the United Kingdom both government and private funding comes in at $100 million; in Sweden government funding accounts for between $10 and $15 million; and in South Korea where scientists have recently created the first embryonic stem cell line from a human clone, private and government funding add up to $60 million. The European Union spends just $650,000 of a $170 million stem cell budget on embryonic stem cells and the report claims that the “EU will not increase funding for embryonic stem cell projects despite a doubling of the total research budget.”

Romney Should Make Up His Mind 
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has been all over the map lately on the life issues. Now that he’s evidently thinking about running for president in 2008, his long-held position that abortion should be “safe and legal” has “evolved” and “deepened.” Now he says, “I believe abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother.” No doubt he and his consultants are aware that while he is trying to appeal to pro-life Republican primary voters, he is sending a message to the pro-abortion-choice faction of the Republican Party that because of his exceptions he is absolutely no threat to legal abortion.

Gov. Romney supports using human embryos for research as long as they are “leftovers” from fertility clinics, but not if they were created solely for research. (The New York Times, 8/2/05) Yet, in July he made a big deal of vetoing a bill that would allow Massachusetts hospitals to dispense the abortion-causing “morning after” pill because it “terminates life after conception.” Killing a human embryo for research is terminating life after conception, Mr. Romney. Please sort this out for us.