The stem-cell wars experienced an unexpected cease-fire shortly after President Bush vetoed expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research in early 2007. It was not because of any new-found common respect for the moral status of the human embryo. Rather, the solution came from science itself.

In November 2007, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin reported that they had reprogrammed regular human skin cells to behave just like human embryonic stem cells. Scientists across the globe hailed the breakthrough method that created patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS cells) without the controversial use of embryos, cloning or the use of human eggs.

The unexpected breakthrough was rated first in Time magazine's "10 Best Scientific Discoveries of 2007." It was rated the number two Breakthrough of the Year by the journal Science. It led Dr. Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, to abandon his U.K. license to attempt the cloning of human embryos for destructive research. Dr. Wilmut said that these researchers "... may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem-cell debate."

At the end of September 2008, researchers at Harvard University overcame "a major obstacle to using [this] promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, bolstering the prospects of bypassing the ethical and political tempest that has embroiled hopes for new medical treatments." Wash Post, 9/26/2008.

Just one week before the President signed the executive order, the Washington Post reported on ips advances as "what appears to be a safer way to create a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, boosting hopes that such cells could sidestep the moral and political quagmire that has hindered the development of a new generation of cures."

A March 4, 2009 article in U.S. News & World Report by former NIH head Dr. Bernadine Healy is entitled "Why Embryonic Stem Cells are Obsolete." Dr. Healy explains that "in the first six weeks of Obama's term, several events reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes, are obsolete. The most sobering: a report from Israel published in PLoS Medicine in late February that shows embryonic stem cells injected into patients can cause disabling if not deadly tumors."

On March 9, 2009, despite the opportunity to use the advances of science to unite the nation, President Obama signed an executive order increasing funding of embryonic stem cell research, and opening the door to the repeal of the Dickey-Wicker amendment so that researchers can use our tax dollars to clone and kill human embryos, and to create IVF human embryos solely for the purpose of destroying them.

“In our judgment, the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research. But as we have noted, ES cells from embryos appear to be different in scientifically important ways from AS cells and also appear to offer greater promise of therapeutic breakthroughs. The claim that there are alternatives to using stem cells derived from embryos is not, at the present time, supported scientifically. We recognize, however, that this is a matter that must be revisited continually as science advances.”