Mike Pence Quotes
We are here simply to decide whether Congress should take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund the destruction of human embryos for research.
Pence, Mike. "Remarks on Stem Cell Research." Congressional Record, Government Publishing Office, 24 May 2005.
One of the extreme religious fundamentalists in the Congress, Brownback was referring to Federally funded medical research which uses embryonic stem cells. The cells are generated from in vitro fertilization procedures and potentially if implanted in the womb of a woman could produce a child. Several cells are produced by the fertilization process but typically only one or two is needed. So some religious extremists believe that just because the cell has the potential for human life, it is human life. This is the same logic which opposes birth control on the grounds that sperm and egg cells are incipient life forms. It was as late as 1973 that bans on birth control devices were declared unconstitutional be the Supreme Court.
George W. Bush followed his deeply held religious belief and that of a small, but controlling religious fundamentalist segment of the Republican Party and banned Federal funding of scientific research that involved fetal stem cells. The thinking of the religious fundamentalist was that if fetal stem cell research were to be extensive there might be a demand for the fetal cells which could come from abortion. This might create more abortions and it would mean that something good might result from a terrible evil—an abortion. This in turn might make abortion less terrible for some people and produce some moral ambiguity. At the same time there are tens of thousands of fertilized embryos available from in vitro fertilization procedures where extras are produced but usually not needed and often are disposed of as waste. However, these fundamentalists do not want to even allow those to be used. Hence, the “insanity” characterization which is more accurately illogicality.
Stem cells are cells of the body that transform into all other cells as needed. Embryonic stem cells are the ones most easily transformed to create other needed cells. There was and is a large supply of embryonic stem cells but religious abortion opponents were concerned that if there were enough success there would be a market for fetal stem cells which would encourage some women to have abortions so that they could sell the embryonic stem cells. President Bush, to placate his religious right wing, had banned federal funds being used for fetal stem cell research. President Obama, who had campaigned on this issue and been elected, then overturned the ban with this quote.
He prefaced his remarks by stating that he was speaking for himself and not the Commission.
Michael Richard Pence is an American politician, broadcaster, and lawyer who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017. Pence was also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.
