(Just as you mentioned in our conversation yesterday, Paula!)

The Dickey-Wicker amendment passed by Congress in the 90's doesn't allow federal taxes to pay for embryo creation or to do research on them that would destroy them. That's why the stem cell research being talked about recently always says it will use "leftover embryos from invitro fertilization" because those embryos were not created for the purpose of research, and that the actual stem cell lines from those embryos must be derived without the use of federal funds.

Once the stem cell lines are derived, then federal funds can be used on the research going forward.

Because it is legislation, Obama cannot overturn the amendment; the NIH must author some sort of guidelines like the ones mentioned above. But the topic to overturn the amendment in Congress will probably also happen at some point as well. In the meantime, federally funded stem cell research can go forward with stem cell lines that are privately created.

Here's the NY Times on the topic today:

"The officials, who provided details of the announcement that Mr. Obama will make around midday Monday at the White House, said the president would leave it to Congress to determine whether the long-standing legislative ban on federal financing for human embryo experiments should also be overturned.

Yet, people on both sides of the stem cell debate say Mr. Obama’s announcement could lead to a reconsideration of the ban on Capitol Hill, an idea so controversial and fraught with ethical implications that the mere discussion of it would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, when President George W. Bush was in office.

The ban, known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, first became law in 1996, and has been renewed by Congress every year since. It specifically bans the use of tax dollars to create human embryos — a practice that is routine in private fertility clinics — or for research in which embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/us...m.html?_r=1&hp

The president is speaking now!