On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced a compromise decision on the contentious question of whether the federal government should provide financial support for research into the curative properties of human stem cells extracted from embryos. Bush’s compromise allowed funding for research into embryonic stem cells that had already been harvested. At the same time, he disallowed funding for procedures that would collect stem cells from frozen (but still living) embryos, since doing so would require their destruction. In the case of those already collected, he said, “The life-or-death decision has already been made.” But that life-or-death decision would not be made anew with taxpayer dollars.

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