Please Act on this ASAP!

The public comment period on the new NIH (National Institutes of Health) draft guidelines to open federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells (ESCR) is nearing its end on May 26, 2009-next Tuesday. It would be most helpful if you, and those in your state, would consider adding your voices to the debate by submitting your comments opposing the guidelines.

President Bush's policy on ESCR was to allow funding for research that involved embryonic stem cells taken from human embryos so long as the cells were obtained from embryos already killed on or prior to August 9, 2001. Since then, the government has funded research on over 22 stem cell lines. Bush's policy erected a wall and did not encourage the further killing of human embryos for their cells.

But, on March 9, 2009, Barack Obama issued an executive order that overturned Bush's policy and opened the floodgates for funding more embryonic stem cell research that creates an incentive to create and kill human embryos. Obama designated the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to draft guidelines for distributing funds for this research.

The current draft guidelines allow your tax dollars to pay for experimentation on stem cells taken from human embryos that supposedly are "leftover" from in vitro fertilization. Instead of promoting the adoption of these tiniest of human beings, these draft guidelines would require their death.

In submitting your comments to NIH, here are a few good ready-to-go talking points you may want to use:

• I oppose killing human embryos. The proposed regulations will force taxpayers like me to fund research I believe is unethical because it requires the killing of human embryos.

• Expanding funding to new human embryonic stem cell lines will divert federal funds away from promising research that is treating people now with non-embryonic stem cells and will also divert funds away from other sources of embryonic-like stem cells that have been generated without the use of human embryos.

• The proposed regulations create a financial incentive for the creation of more human embryos to be destroyed to obtain their embryonic stem cells.

• The guidelines do not require any separation between an IVF doctor and an ESCR researcher. The guidelines say they "should" be separate, but only when practicable. The guidelines allow any IVF doctor to create more embryos than are needed for fertility purposes in order to generate more so-called "leftover" embryos for ESCR research using taxpayer funds.

• Instead of preventing any future expansion of funding for ESCR on unethical experiments involving human clones and human-animal hybrids, these regulations open the door for such funding upon the order of NIH.

• The guidelines do not require full informed consent for the parents of the human embryos so that they understand that their options include permission for infertile couples to adopt them.

Another good strategy is to mention the success stories of anyone you may know who has been treated with ethical, non-embryonic/adult stem cells.