Stem Cells and Politics

[Update: I've posted my revised and extended thoughts here after a useful argument with Cham and Mecha.]

Obama completely lifted the Executive branch restrictions on Federal funding for stem cell research.  I definitely put that in the good news category.  That said, Kevin Drum was a bit annoyed with the statement:

Politics is politics, and presidents always frame their decisions in ways they think will be the most acceptable to the most people.  But this annoyed me when I read Obama's statement yesterday, and I don't blame Levin for being annoyed either.  If you think an embryo is a human life — and lots of people do — then you're going to be opposed to embryo research.  If, like me, you don't, then you're not likely to have any objection.  But although science can inform that debate, it can't resolve it...

I guess I wouldn't care too much about this except that Obama also issued a memo yesterday about eliminating political interference with science.  That's important, and it applies to important subjects like global warming, habitat protection, GM foods, Plan B, and other things.  But its impact is diluted if we pretend that everything is a scientific issue. 

Jon Chait makes basically the same point and the two of them note their rare agreement with Yuval Levin.   I agree, I'm fine with the decision but we shouldn't imply that there were ethical questions and not just scientific ones involved.

It is worth noting that the use of stem cells is already regulated by Congress.  According to Wikipedia the relevant legislation is the "Dickey Amendment which prohibited federally appropriated funds to be used for research where human embryos would be either created or destroyed."  With current techniques, getting embrionic stem cells does mean the destruction of embryos, so that can't get federal funding.  The funding would be limited to research on the resulting cells.  That said, I don't think Obama mentioned this in his announcement so he isn't explicitly defering to a prior political judgment.