Even some of his political foes agreed: President Bush's Aug. 9 speech was so searching, so sober, that it managed to transcend politics. Yet the stem-cell compromise he introduced that evening — denying federal funds that “would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos” while permitting funding for research on the 60 stem-cell lines already in existence — has divided the pro-life movement.

Bishop Joseph Fiorenza, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, swiftly denounced the decision, saying it “allows our nation's research enterprise to cultivate a disrespect for human life.” Just as quickly, a number of pro-life leaders voiced their approval. “We breathe a sigh of relief that President Bush has upheld [the] pro-life policy,” said Dr. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family.

What are leading pro-life advocates and Catholic thinkers saying about the development? Here's what several wrote when the Register asked for their thoughts.

Daniel P. Sulmasy

President Bush's decision on stem cells came as a welcome surprise to me. I had been prepared for a full-scale authorization of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. I do not see his decision as a compromise of principles, but as one that upholds principles and helps to avert an “open season” on human embryos among U.S. scientists.

I think the decision can be justified under the classical principle of material cooperation. First, research on embryonic stem-cell lines is not in itself evil. An embryonic stem-cell line created through the destruction of human embryos is not a human person. Second, the president's decision to prohibit further funding for the destruction of human embryos, along with his explicit condemnation of such destruction, is evidence that there is no formal cooperation or sharing in the evil intent. So, the cooperation is solely material.

Third, it is not necessary cooperation. Necessary cooperation would imply that the embryos would not have been destroyed but for the president's action. This is clearly not the case.

Fourth, it is not immediate material cooperation because the president's decision does not involve him or any scientist using these cell lines (except those who created them in the first place) in any physical way in the act of destroying human embryos. Therefore, it is remote material cooperation.

Nonetheless, declaring an act to be remote material cooperation is not sufficient. Another question is whether the act causes scandal in the sense that it might induce others to evil, either by appearing to condone it or by encouraging others to participate in evil acts. But the president coupled his decision with a ban on further funding for the destruction of human embryos, substantially mitigating any worry that the decision will induce others to this evil. Some have argued that this decision will lead to pressure to destroy more embryos for research. However, I think the line can be held at using these existing cells. And the president has promised to veto any legislation funding more embryo destruction.

Finally, one must consider proportionate effects of this decision. There well may be human benefit from these embryonic cell lines that could not be achieved with adult stem cells. And I am convinced that, had Bush decided to ban all funding for embryonic stem-cell research, Congress would have authorized it with a vetoproof majority and would probably even have funded human cloning.

Thus, I think pro-life advocates should be supportive of the president's position as the best we could have hoped for under the circumstances.

This decision itself violates no pro-life principles. But it does mean that we must be especially vigilant to hold the line here and not allow the government to succumb to more pressure from the biotech industry and pro-abortion lobbyists who want to eliminate the principle that human life, in its embryonic and fetal stages, has human rights and is worthy of our profound respect.

Franciscan Brother Daniel P.

Sulmasy, M.D., is director of the

Bioethics Institute at New York

Medical College.

Cathleen Cleaver

One reaction to President Bush's decision is to mourn the loss of life that has already occurred, defend the stance against future funding and get on with the promising research. Yet we cannot help but feel something approaching dread when we contemplate that, with this decision, we will be paying for research that has been made possible only by the taking of human lives.

I say “approaching” dread because the whole concept can seem so abstract. We know that an early embryo is just as human as we are. But what kind of life do these embryos have? Can it have any meaning? Why is it difficult to see these embryos as tiny humans, early in development, made in the image of God?

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II explains that we are experiencing a culture of death because there has been an “eclipse of the sense of God.” By living “as if God did not exist,” man not only loses sight of the mystery of God, but also of the mystery of his own being. In our culture of death, we no longer see our lives as gifts, given at the pleasure of the divine gift-giver. Human life no longer seems sacred because we have forgotten its origin.

This forgetting of God, and consequent losing sight of man, leads to what the Holy Father calls a “systematic violation of the moral law.” We experience this now. When one in four pregnancies ends in abortion, abortion is no longer an occasional evil; it has become part of the very fabric of our society. What happens to a society which makes the violation of moral law systematic? The result, says John Paul II, is utter confusion between good and evil — a “darkening of the capacity to discern God's presence.” When, by our own will, we forget God, we begin a journey to a place where it becomes difficult or impossible to see God. We live in a culture today which has so systematized moral violations that it no longer recognizes them as violations.

The president's decision to fund embryonic stem-cell research goes to the heart of this tragedy. Before the decision, there were scientists who were killing human embryos for research. This was a grave evil, but it was an anomaly, an evil at the margins. The decision to publicly finance research on the remains of these destroyed embryos helps to bring the research into the mainstream and make it a public affair — it systematizes it and makes it part of the fabric of our society. And it will make it even more difficult for society to see in every human embryo the image of God.

In their quiet stillness, human embryos bear our image, and the image of God. They are a mystery to us, but not to God.

Cathleen Cleaver is director

for planning and information

at the Secretariat for Pro-Life

Activities of the U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops.

Janet E. Smith

Pro-life critics of President Bush's stem-cell decision say that it dishonors those lives killed to obtain the cells, and that it will lead to future destruction of more embryos should the cells prove valuable — and even if they don't. Refusing to use these cell lines would certainly serve to signal how wrong it was to have sacrificed their lives for research — an important signal for a culture terribly deficient in its respect for embryonic human life. Nonetheless, I believe that it is morally permissible for some scientists to do research on the cells generated from these embryos unjustly killed. Why?

Certainly, one should never do evil to achieve good, but this does not mean that one cannot bring good out of evil actions already done. Hospitals and schools have undoubtedly been built, on occasion, from money donated by those who acquired the money by immoral means. If we were to learn that the chief benefactor of a hospital was a mafia don, should we therefore close the hospital?

But perhaps these analogies aren't quite accurate. Undoubtedly, it is morally problematic that those who started the cell lines were willing to destroy embryos for the sake of research. One opposing use of the cell lines might argue that, if someone murdered another to have access to a kidney, we would not permit the murderer to use the kidney. That is certainly correct and thus it would be immoral for those involved in the creation of the cell lines to do research on them: They would be profiting from their immoral deeds. On the other hand, wouldn't it be moral for someone else to use a kidney transplant from the murder victim?

Those who did not participate in the creation of the cell lines, in my opinion, may morally do research on the stem cells. I do fear that scientists might clamor for the creation of more cell lines and become even more willing to create and destroy human life, but I also think allowing such research may diminish the demand for more cell lines. It may well be that scientists will find that embryonic stem cells are not very useful and that umbilical-cord stem cells and adult stem cells may be much more useful.

That the embryos did not give consent to the use of their cells presents another moral challenge. Yet, perhaps it is reasonable to assume consent on the part of the embryos; indeed, if I were the victim of some crime, I would approve use of my cells and organs for medical and research purposes and I suspect others would also, especially if it would prevent other innocent human beings from being killed for such purposes.

Very possibly at considerable political cost to himself, Bush has made it clear that he opposes killing embryonic human beings in order to get their stem cells; thus, I do not think he can be accused of being complicit in the killing of the embryos who were killed to create the available cell lines. His decision seems to me to be truly wise and one that best serves the lives of embryonic human beings, both dead and alive.

Janet E. Smith, associate

professor of philosophy

at the University of Dallas, is on

leave to teach at Ave Maria

College

in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Deal W. Hudson

President Bush's decision to provide federal funds for research on embryonic stem cells is disappointing. The president kept his campaign promise not to use federal funds to destroy embryos, but the research on existing cells lines remains linked — materially — to the original destruction of the embryos.

However, the good news in the president's announcement should not be overlooked. Most of the federal funds ($250 million) will go toward research on stem cells taken from adults, umbilical cords and placentas. The president also stated his unequivocal opposition to human cloning.

The president's decision ensures for the time being that no more embryos will be destroyed for the sake of federal funding. He will need to continue restating his position since the media will surely provide a megaphone for any scientist or physician who thinks the 60 cells lines are insufficient to produced the promised miracle cures.

Most importantly, a commission will be established to oversee stem-cell research headed by, perhaps, the most respected bioethicist in the United States, Dr. Leon Kass of the University of Chicago. The selection of Kass should give all of us a sense of security that the implementation of this policy will not slide down the slippery slope.

The president's speech was also remarkable for its near-scholastic weighing of pros and cons before coming to a conclusion. If he was intending to set a civil and rational tone for subsequent debate, then let us hope he succeeds. This kind of careful sifting of argument and deliberation gives the truth its best chance of coming into view.

The only verbal misstep in his speech was describing embryos as possessing “potential for life.” All human life, strictly speaking, contains potential, because it is constantly changing. Any change is a change from potency to act, whether a fetus developing visible limbs or the moment of birth itself. But what remains constant is human identity — it does not undergo change or diminution with any physical change.

To describe an embryo as having “potential for life” sounds like calling it something less than human. Bush, who has stated publicly his belief that life begins at conception, should avoid such terminology in the future.

It will be interesting to compare the Catholic reaction of Bush's stem-cell decision to Bill Clinton's on partial-birth abortion. There will be some who will want to use the Bush decision as a wedge issue to divide him from his Catholic constituents; others will simply express disappointment in a man they believe is a pro-life president.

It should be obvious that Bush, from a pro-life perspective, is doing many things right — the Mexico City Policy, Attorney General John Ashcroft's appointment, and judicial nominations — even if this decision is off the mark.

Deal Hudson is publisher and

editor of Crisis magazine.

David N. O'steen

Displaying a respect for life conspicuously absent from the White House during the Clinton-Gore years, President Bush has announced he will not allow federal funding of stem-cell research that would cause human embryos to be destroyed. In his Aug. 9 speech, the president said, “Human life is a sacred gift from our creator. I worry about a culture that devalues life, and believe as your president I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.”

The substantive and symbolic importance of the president's decision for the pro-life movement should not be underestimated. Bush's decision nullified Clinton administration guidelines that would have provided taxpayer funding for embryonic stem-cell research that allowed for the continual destruction of human embryos. As he said in an op-ed for the New York Times, “ it is unethical to end life in medical research.”

The National Right to Life Committee commends Bush's decision to prevent the federal government from becoming involved in research that would require the destruction of human embryos. In so doing, the president acted to save the lives that he could.

Furthermore, the president has subsequently emphasized that he would veto legislation, such as the Specter-Harkin bill, that expanded federal funding to include stem-cell research that would require the destruction of human embryos. Specter-Harkin seemed certain to pass in the Senate before Mr. Bush fundamentally changed the terms of the debate by placing “the need to protect life in all its phases” front and center.

While National Right to Life did not favor federal funding of research involving existing embryonic stem cells, neither Bush nor his administration had anything to do with the destruction of embryos from whom the approximately 60 stem-cell lines that currently exist were derived.

We mourn the children who were destroyed to derive these stem-cell lines, but there is nothing the pro-life community or the president can do to restore their lives.

In his speech, Bush also reaf-firmed his strong opposition both to human cloning and to the creation of human embryos specifically for experimentation. These are not just theoretical possibilities. A Massachusetts company plans to attempt to create cloned human embryos for the purpose of harvesting their stem cells.

Although the House of Representatives recently voted to ban human cloning, prior to Bush's speech passage of the bill seemed very problematic in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Passage is now a real possibility, thanks to the president's unwavering opposition to cloning.

Pro-lifers must seize the opportunity Bush has helped provide by acting immediately to prevent cloned human embryo farms in the United States. The president drew a line that said No to killing embryos for research, No to creating embryos for lethal research, No to human cloning — but an emphatic Yes to the protection of life.

The line may not have been drawn precisely where some prolifers would have drawn it, but we should all stand with the president in defending that line against anti-life forces.

David N. O'steen is

executive director of the

National Right to Life Committee.