Stem cell research is illegal, unethical, and unnecessary President Bush's limited federal funding for research based on the destruction of human embryos violates federal statutory law . Christians have grieved for many years over the assault on unborn human life unleashed on our nation by the Roe v. Wade of the Supreme Court. Even that decision, however, did not affect all areas of law in which lawmakers seek to protect the development of human life. Because they are not covered by the Court's theory of reproductive privacy, human embryos outside the womb may be fully protected by law – and at least nine states have acted to protect these embryos from lethal experiments. In some states, destructive experimentation on human embryos is a crime. Most Christians have grave concerns about this critically important issue of embryonic stem cell research. In our opinion, conducting research that relies on the deliberate destruction of human embryos to obtain stem cells is illegal, immoral and unnecessary. It is illegal because it violates an appropriations clause (the Dickey Amendment) passed every year since 1995 by Congress. This provision prohibits funding of "research in which" human embryos (whether they were initially created for research purposes or not) are damaged or destroyed outside the uterus. (1) National Institutes of Health guidelines approved by the Clinton administration, however, provide researchers with detailed instructions on how to obtain human embryos for destructive cell harvesting if they wish to qualify for federal grants in "human pluripotent stem cell research." (2) Clearly, obtaining and destroying embryos is an integral part of this project, even though the specific act of destroying embryos does not directly receive federal funds. Edited by... half of article......severe human combined immunodeficiency (SCID)-X1 Disease," 288 Science 669-72 (April 28, 2000). 16. K. Foss, "Paraplegic confirms movement after cell procedure," The Globe and Mail (Toronto), June 15, 2001, A1.17. E. Ryan et al., "Glycemic Outcome Post Islet Transplantation," Abstract #33-LB, American Diabetes Association Annual Meeting, 24 June 2001. See: http://38.204.37.95/am01/AnnualMeeting/Abstracts/NumberResults.asp?idAbs=33-LB.18 M. McCullough, "Islet transplants offer hope that diabetes can be cured," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22, 2001, A1.19. D. Woodbury et al., "Adult Rat and Human Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Differentiate Into Neurons," 61 J. of Neuroscience Research 364-70 (2000) at 364 (emphasis added) .20. D. Prockop, "Stem Cell Research Has Just Begun" (Letter), 293 Science 211-2 (July 13, 2001) (citations omitted).