An international Christian medical organization based right here in Bristol, Tennessee, is pleased with a federal judge's recent ruling in their case against the Obama administration.
The Christian Medical and Dental Association sued the federal government for funding research involving embryonic stem cells.
The association's CEO, Dr. David Stevens says that embryonic stem cell research is immoral, "We don't have to destroy one human being to get the cures that we all want. It's immoral to destroy one individual, even to save the life of the other;" unnecessary, "where we're really seeing progress is with adult stem cells, and induced pluripotent cells. Which are cells you can actually take a skin cell, modify it, and it acts like an embryonic stem cell;" and impractical, "These cells are very very difficult to work with... We've been at this for 12 years. We've put millions and billions of dollars in it and we still are not close to any cures... So let's put our money where we're going to get real cures for real people real fast."
The lawsuit claims the government broke the law by giving federal tax dollars to embryonic stem cell research. According to Dr. Stevens, this ruling implies that their lawsuit will be successful, and that without stopping governmental funding for embryonic research, other research areas will be harmed.
"The judge agreed with us," says Dr. Stevens, "and said there's no way for the courts to fix that. Once people miss their grants, the court can't reinstate, therefore we're putting an injunction in place to get this thing settled before we let anything go forward."
The lawsuit against the government is by the Christian Medical Association, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, and scientists involved in adult stem cell research.
Dr. Stevens says moving forward in the lawsuit, the government will likely have a hard time, and may need to change a law in order to fund embryonic stem cell research in the future.
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