Jay Dickey: “Mr. Chairman, this is not a bill about research or science; it is an attack on the sanctity of life. It is an attack on…”

“Mr. Chairman, this is not a bill about research or science; it is an attack on the sanctity of life. It is an attack on the moral conscience of our Nation. The current law, as signed by the President, passed in this House and the Senate, provides that there shall be no Federal money given for the creation or the experimentation of a human embryo. That law has been the law since President Carter signed an executive order when he was President, and every President has done that since then. This is distinguished from fetal tissues, which is a legitimate, though I have objections to it, a legitimate scientific effort. In that particular matter, fetal tissue research comes after an abortion, and we were told at that time that Parkinson's disease and diabetes was in the scope of what we were trying to do. Here we have no direct promise, no testimony, no science at all telling us that we might have anything to come from this. Mr. Chairman, this is what Nazi Germany did during that time. No results. After 17 years of private research, there have been no results. There is still no prohibition against the private research, and it can still go on. We might hear in this discussion that there is a spare-embryo circumstance. There are no spare embryos when these are lives.”