Obama admits ethical tussle on stem cells(VIEWS anyone?)

(VIEWS anyone?)
Obama admits ethical tussle on stem cells

President Barack Obama said Tuesday he struggled with moral and ethical issues before signing an executive order on human embryonic stem cell research.

"I believe it is very important for us to have strong moral guidelines, ethical guidelines when it comes to stem cell research or anything that touches on possible cloning or issues related to human life sciences," Obama said during a prime-time news conference.

The executive order Obama signed this month revoked former President George W. Bush's executive order and presidential statement that limited federal funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells.

"There's always an ethical and a moral element that has to be a part of this," Obama said.

"I think that the guidelines that we provided meet that ethical test. What we have said is that, for embryos that are typically about to be discarded, for us to be able to use those to find cures for ... debilitating diseases ... that it is the right thing to do."

He said he was glad to see progress being made on adult stem cells and looked forward to the day when "the mechanism to cure these diseases that gains 100 percent of consensus."

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.