2 of 2

Which takes us to a final comment from the story. "How else will us uneducated women earn this kind of money, without doing anything immoral?" asks one of the surrogate mothers at the Kaival Hospital. That, of course, is the problem.

While most Americans seem to think that we are the only country with qualms about funding the destruction of human embryos for research (and the U.S. press tends not to report anything that would persuade us otherwise), the Bush funding policy sits somewhere in the center-ground of European debate—with the U.K. at one extreme (Brave New Britain) and much of continental Europe leaning the other way. No decisions have yet been made about the next multi-year European science program, but there is sustained opposition to going the British way, according to The Scientist:

Germany, Austria and other nations opposed to E.U. funding of human embryonic stem-cell research proposed an E.U. funding ban this month in Brussels at a meeting of the E.U.'s 25 national science ministers, raising concerns that the minority group could force nations to remove this funding from the newest budget, even for scientists in countries where the research is legal.

The six nations—including also Italy, Poland, Malta, and Slovakia—failed to win additional backing at the meeting for a funding ban, but do hold enough combined voting power in the Council of science ministers to form a so-called "blocking minority."

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous Life Matters columns include:

The Abortion Agenda: South Dakota's Move in Context | Plus: The latest on the biopolicy agenda and some outrageous lies on stem cells. (March 30, 2006)

Our Cloning Friends, the Brits | The U.K. and disaffected American researchers lash out at U.S. cloning laws. (March 17, 2006)

The Truth, the Partial Truth, and Nothing but Evasions | How to sell unethical science. (March 2, 2006)

The Pursuit of Enhancement | The latest from Brave New Britain. (Feb. 22. 2006)

Poaching Eggs | The latest sad story from the Korean soap opera—and a lack of Talent in Missouri (Feb. 17, 2006)

The State of the Human | President Bush sets out a vital agenda for ethics. (Feb. 2, 2006)

Are You My Sperm Donor? | Plus: Another Hwang turn, more small surprises, and other life ethics stories. (Jan. 26, 2006)

Breeding Humans Like Rabbits? | From the frying pan into the fire. (Jan. 20, 2006)

More CT articles on bioethics are available on our Life Ethics page.

first page |  2 of 2

share this page

April (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50