A failed noncomplicity scheme.

Present U.S. policy on funding embryonic stem cell research evidently rests on the supposition that, because the policy's announcement on August 9, 2001 came as a surprise, no one initiating a stem cell line prior thereto could reasonably have been induced to do so by the government. Hence it has been suggested that without complicity in embryo destruction, the government may fund studies of lines created before that date. The escape from complicity is illusory. The historical facts belie the supposition of noninducement. What is more, if, in order to meet demand for more and newer cell lines, the government stipulates some later date as the creation time of the oldest eligible cell line, that move will explode the policy's purported justification. The policy is as unavailing as a moral position as it is constringent for scientific progress.