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标题：The Pedagogical Significance of the Bush Stem Cell Policy: A Window into Bioethical Regulation in the United States
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作者：Snead, O. Carter
期刊名称：Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics
印刷版ISSN：1535-3532
出版年度：2013
卷号：5
期号：1
页码：20
出版社：Yale Law School
摘要：The enormous significance of the Bush stem cell funding policy has been evident since its inception. The announcement of the policy on August 9, 2001 marked the first time a U.S. president had ever taken up a matter of bioethical import as the sole subject of a major national policy address. Indeed, the August 9th speech was the President's first nationally televised policy address of any kind. Since then, the policy has been a constant focus of attention and discussion by political commentators, the print and broadcast media, advocacy organizations, scientists, elected officials, and candidates for all levels of office (including especially the 2004 Democratic nominee for President, Senator John Kerry, who made his opposition to the Bush policy a centerpiece of his domestic campaign, mentioning it explicitly in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention) The biotechnology industry has taken a keen interest in stem cell research as a possible avenue for medical therapies; one study suggests that as of 2002 private sector companies had spent an aggregate of $208 million on research and development of stem cell technologies. In response to the policy, there has been a flurry of state legislation proposed and enacted, with some states affirming and others condemning the Administration's approach . Finally, the great prominence of the national and international debate on human cloning has drawn further attention to the issue of embryonic stem cell research (and by extension, the Bush policy), given that one application of somatic cell nuclear transfer is the production of cloned human embryos from which stem cells may be derived (so-called "Therapeutic Cloning") . To date, the significance of the Bush stem cell policy has been framed and publicly debated in terms of its practical import: Does it impede the scientific and medical progress that the research seems to promise? Is it adequately protective and respectful of embryonic human life? Aside from its great practical significance, however, the Bush policy is arguably one of the most important recent legal developments for the field of bioethics for an additional reason: its deep pedagogical significance. The Bush policy provides an unparalleled window into the nature and substance of "bioethical regulation" within the unique framework of the American system of government. And it does so in dramatic fashion, against the backdrop of some of the most enduring and vexing questions in all of bioethics: What is owed to developing human life,