Fight to protect unborn to march forward

Stem cells

A legal team that has been battling the Obama administration over the lives of the unborn in America says the fight will continue.

The Alliance Defense Fund is opposing the administration's decision to force taxpayers, including Christians, to fund embryonic stem-cell research.

Pro-life advocates say there is no reason, and certainly no moral or ethical justification, to destroy the lives of embryos for research.

The organization today announced that members of its staff, along with Samuel B. Casey of the Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project and Tom Hungar of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, are weighing their options for an appeal in response to a federal judge's ruling today.

According toLifeNews.com, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ruled a year ago that the Obama executive order to fund embryo research likely violated a federal law.

However, an appellate court later ruled said Obama can force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell destruction. Lamberth, arguing he was bound by the appellate ruling, dismissed the lawsuit over the issue.

ADF said, "The judge explained that he believes his hands have been tied by an appellate court decision that reversed his August 2010 order to stop the funding in light of a federal law that prohibits it."

ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden said Americans "should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law."

"The district court’s injunction simply enforced that law, which makes sure Americans don't pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research," he said. "The law is clear, and we intend to review all of our options for appeal of this decision. In these tough economic times, it makes no sense for the federal government to use taxpayer money for this illegal and unethical purpose."

The judge wrote, "While it may be true that by following the Court of Appeals' conclusion as to the ambiguity of 'research,' this court has become a grudging partner in a bout of 'linguistic jujitsu…,' such is life for an antepenultimate court. Therefore the D.C. Circuit's conclusion that the term 'research' in the Dickey-Wicker Amendment is ambiguous binds this court."

The pro-life attorneys had argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in December that the administration policy authorizes the National Institutes of Health to fund additional research projects that destroy human embryos even though a federal law known as the Dickey/Wicker Amendment specifically prohibits such funding.

Obama, just months after he moved into the White House, overturned the protections that President Bush had installed to prevent taxpayer funding of embryo destruction.

The plaintiffs in the case alleged Obama was in violation of the 1996 Dickey-Wicker amendment that prevented the use of tax funds to destroy human embryos.