Contact: Samuel B. Casey, Christian Legal Society, 703-624-4092, 703-642-1070, Ext. 3201

WASHINGTON, June 7 /Christian Newswire/ -- Like its predecessor the President vetoed last year, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (S.5) that passed Congress today is more accurately called the 'Unnecessary Human Embryo Destruction Act' because it not only fails to adequately respect human life by encouraging 'research' on living human embryos solely to dissect and kill them for their stem cells, it further fails to justify why such research is even necessary given the other more viable and completely ethical research alternatives available (www.stemcellresearch.org) and open for funding.

While the Act's proponents continue to insist that legislation is necessary to advance medical research, few, if any, successful animal models of embryonic stem cell research exist.  Western medicine and law has always previously required successful animal disease modeling before experimenting on human subjects.  In addition, the international medical code of conduct prohibits all hazardous non-therapeutic research on human subjects, particularly when as here it is not absolutely necessary.  This Act, if not vetoed, would only legitimize a dangerous departure from this model that has served us well since Nuremberg, based solely on unfounded speculation about the utility of the research.

"In short, the Act would accomplish nothing short of a revolution in medical law by overcoming the natural legal principles that have for decades protected human subjects from harmful experimentation," said CLS Executive Director Sam Casey.  "It rests on the worst form of utilitarianism because no proven remedies -- only speculation -- are juxtaposed against the cost in human lives this so-called 'research' demands."

"Americans need to begin wrestling with three indisputable, scientifically verifiable facts:  (1) the subject of this so-called "stem cell research" are not just "cells", but living and genetically unique human beings; (2) the embryo would be human and capable of developing into an adult; and (3) derivation of a human embryo's stem cells and various other components necessarily terminates the life of the human embryo."

Living human embryos, referred to disparagingly by some in the Congress and the research community as "dots" or "goldfish," are today more properly the subject of adoption by such agencies as Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency.   Parents have appeared before Congress carrying their young children that they adopted when these children were frozen human embryos otherwise headed for abandonment or destruction.  The demand for embryo adoption services is exploding, because of the earnest and understandable desire of infertile couples to adopt, birth and raise children (see next page)  

"Call the human embryo what you want, whether it is created through a cloning or a reproductive  technology, no matter what some on Capitol Hill  may opine, in fact it is living, human, and capable of becoming a child if it is simply treated like any living human being should be treated," said Sam Casey, "Therefore, these human embryos at the very least deserve some legal rights and special respect beyond that of mere property. Whether or not you agree that the human embryo merits the same protection as a 'person' under our 14th Amendment, surely this great country will not stand by idly while living human beings are created only to thereafter be abandoned and made the subject of destructive human experimentation."

Accordingly, Christian Legal Society again applauds the President for his announced intention to again veto this wrong-headed and unnecessary legislation.

Christian Legal Society, founded in 1961, is a national membership organization of more than 3000 Christian attorneys, judges, law professors and law students, as well as supportive laypeople with members in all fifty states and more than 1100 cities, organized into more than 35 attorney chapters and 165 law student chapters throughout the United States. Through its Law of Life Project and Human Life Advocates affiliate, CLS has previously been involved in the legal battles to maintain the existing federal ban on the funding of destructive human embryo research and extend this ban to all forms of human cloning under federal law.