Contact: Stacey Holliday, Concerned Women for America, 202-488-7000 ext. 126

WASHINGTON, July 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- Concerned Women for America (CWA) urges U.S. senators to support a ban on creating fetuses to harvest their tissue for research and to oppose federally funding the destruction of embryos for research.  Upon Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tennessee) request, a series of bioethics bills will reach the floor this week.

The package of bills includes

• The Fetus Farming Prohibition Act (S. 3504), which would make it a federal offense for researchers to use tissue from a human baby who was created and grown in a woman’s or animal’s womb for the express purpose of obtaining human tissue;

• The Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act (S.2754), which intends to support research to find methods of creating stem cells that can turn into any kind of tissue, without harming human embryos;

• The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 810 & S.471), which would use tax dollars to fund the destruction of human embryos.

“We desire miraculous treatments but, as civilized people, not at the expense of human lives. We should not permit scientists to kill human beings even for the noble claim of finding cures,” said Wendy Wright, CWA’s President.  “No one – especially a less-than-perfect person – should feel safe once we decide that some humans can be used as research material to benefit others. The Senate has an enormous opportunity this week to determine how civilized we will be: Will our country condone and fund research that dismembers small human beings?”

“Proponents of ESCR [embryonic stem-cell research] seem to think that destroying a human life to ‘save’ the life of another is a justifiable practice,” said Lanier Swann, CWA’s Director of Government Relations.  “In reality, they are not saving either. The science speaks for itself. In the year since the House has voted on this same measure, ESCR has yet to yield one single success in human treatments. Yet, in that same year, we have heard story after story of lives being changed through successful adult stem-cell treatments. It is an irresponsible action by the U.S. Senate to ask taxpayers to fund a science that is both immoral and ineffective.

“Senators must heed the undeniable evidence that ASCR [adult stem-cell research] is a giant leap forward for the medical community while the funding of ESCR continues to waste our money on the exploitation and destruction of little lives. It is time to take action,” concluded Swann, “it is time to vote to support a science that saves lives, not ends them.”

Click to read more about the bioethics legislation before the Senate this week.

Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public women's organization.