Jews of all denominations advocate stem cell research
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
With federal funding for stem cell research ground to a halt, states have become the new battleground for the research that potentially could lead to treatments for cancer, Parkinson's disease and heart disease.
More than a dozen states are considering legislation that would support stem cell research.
Several other states are looking at legislation to restrict the research severely.
The discussions increasingly are taking on a religious tone, and Jewish groups are working to highlight a religious perspective that supports research on cells taken from embryos once they have left a woman's body.
At the same time, the issue has become a rare unifier in the Jewish community, with Jews across the religious streams promoting the use of stem cell research.
"The Jewish perception is that anything that can be used for potentially saving a human life should not only be allowed but aggressively pursued," said Rabbi Edward Reichman, a physician and an Orthodox scholar on Jewish medical ethics in New York.
Even as attention shifts to the states, lawmakers in both houses of Congress introduced the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act last month. It would override President Bush's ruling on stem cell research and expand the number of stem cell lines available for federal research.
Bush's decision to ban all federal funding for new stem cell lines after 2001 was not binding on states.
Christian conservatives are pushing hard against stem cell research. They view embryos, including the egg fertilized with a somatic cell instead of a sperm cell, as life, and are lobbying state legislators to ban the procedures, which would restrict both public and private research.
Jewish law has consistently said embryos and fetuses in utero do not have status as full human life.
In a meeting between House Democratic leaders and Jewish leaders last year, Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union's Institute for Public Affairs, turned the conversation to stem cell research to highlight an issue about which all Jewish groups agree.
"The potential to save and heal human lives is an integral part of valuing human life from the traditional Jewish perspective," the Orthodox Union and its rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical Council of America, said in a letter to Bush in 2001.
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