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What appears below is
a letter sent by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) to most members
of the U.S. House of Representatives on May 11, 2005, in opposition to H.R.
810, a bill to authorize federal funding of research that requires killing
human embryos.
Dear Member of Congress:
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), on behalf of our affiliates in
all 50 states, urges you to oppose H.R. 810, legislation to authorize
federal funding of research that requires the killing of human embryos.
H.R. 810, sponsored by Reps. Castle and DeGette, is intended solely to
overturn President Bush's policy against using federal funds for
embryo-destructive research. NRLC will include the roll call on passage of
H.R. 810 (or any substantially similar legislation) in its scorecard of key
pro-life votes for 2005.
Each human being begins as a human embryo, male or female. The government
should not fund research that requires the killing of living members of the
species homo sapiens.
Stem cells can be obtained without killing human embryos, from umbilical
cord blood and from many types of "adult" (non-embryonic) tissue. Already,
humans with
at least 58 different diseases and conditions have received therapeutic
benefit from treatment with such "adult stem cells." In contrast, embryonic
stem cells have not been tested in humans for any purpose because of the
dangers demonstrated in animal studies, including frequent formation of
tumors.
Those who favor federal funding of research that kills human embryos
sometimes claim that these embryos "will be discarded anyway," but this need
not be so. Many human embryos have been adopted while they were still
embryos, or simply donated by their biological parents to other infertile
couples. Today they are children indistinguishable from any others.
For additional information, please contact the NRLC Federal Legislation
Department at 202-626-8820 or Legfederal@aol.com. Additional resources are
available at the NRLC Human Embryos webpage at
www.nrlc.org/killing_embryos/index.html and at
www.stemcellresearch.org.
Thank you for your consideration of our objections to this legislation.
Sincerely,
David N. O'Steen, Ph.D.
NRLC Executive Director
Douglas Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director
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