Sam Brownback: “If our objective is healing people, if that is our objective, we have a far more likely route, a route that is already…”

“If our objective is healing people, if that is our objective, we have a far more likely route, a route that is already producing substantial success that is lying right in front of us, without ethical concerns or dilemmas--adult stem cells, cord blood. Increasingly, in the future, in amniotic fluid we will find abundant supplies of stem cells with no moral problems whatsoever. That is what doesn't make any sense to me either. We are going to take away all human dignity from the youngest humans. We are going to do so in an arbitrary fashion because we are not saying where you develop the status of human dignity at some point in time, but we are going to take it away from you here. We are going to use Federal taxpayer dollars to destroy you. Yet we have another way that is producing good results in the adult stem cells, stem cells in your body and in mine, and this route is producing tumors. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense why we would invest $613 million more into the future as we have in the past since 2002. Why would you put more into this area that has all these problems? I respect my colleagues who are on the other side of this debate. They want to produce results and they want to cure people. But it seems as if all the evidence is leading us the other way without ethical dilemma.”