Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, January 17, 2009 1:57:22 PM
Carrie Budoff Brown seems to think Barack Obama has flip-flopped on another campaign promise,
but the difference is procedural, not substantial. Obama campaigned
against the Bush executive order barring federal funding for research
on embryonic stem cells and said he would reverse it once elected. Now
Politico reports that Obama has backed away from that pledge, but only
because he has a way to share the burden
The irony here is that adult stem cells can deliver the
pluripotentiality of hEsc products now, with much more stability.
There is little reason now to fund embryonic stem-cell research, which
is one of the reasons why hEsc projects can’t find enough private
financing. Bush didn’t block hEsc research, as some claim, but only
federal funding for research into new lines, and since that time, it’s
been shown as unnecessary — and hEsc has never actually led to any
therapeutic solutions anyway, while adult stem-cell therapies have had
considerable success.
Now Obama wants to back away from his pledge to end the executive
order, but clearly Politico’s headline, “Obama may not lift stem cell
limits,” is either irrationally optimistic or simply ignorant of what
follows. Obama intends on having the policy reversed, but instead of
doing it by himself, he wants Congress to initiate the changes. Can
Congress override an executive order? I don’t believe they can, so at
some point Obama will have to vacate it — but he’s not going to impose the actual policy change by executive order.
That makes some sense from a procedural point of view. Congress
should initiate most policy, and the executive should work with and
through them to get his agenda passed. It fits with Obama’s statements
from the campaign about his views of the relationship between the White
House and Capitol Hill, and his criticisms of Bush’s views on that
subject.
That doesn’t make the policy right, however, nor does it amount to a
reversal on hEsc funding, unfortunately. Obama knows he can get
Congress to initiate federal funding for research built on the
destruction of human embryos. If he can get that kind of political
cover, why not use it to the fullest?