Changing the law on embryonic stem cell research will be one of the first moves taken by Congress and the Obama Administration after the President-elect takes office, Rep. Diana DeGette said Wednesday.
DeGette spoke with Obama when he was in Colorado before the election and "he told me it was one of his top agenda items," the Democratic congresswoman from Denver said.
While other issues like the economy and national security are pressing, she said, the stem cell issue has been"vetted." Congress has twice passed her bill expanding funding of the research, and President Bush vetoed it both times.
Obama after taking office could reverse President Bush's executive order of Aug. 9, 2001 limiting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to already derived lines. But Congress might need to act on legislation to set up ethical guidelines for research or address scientific advances since then, DeGette said.
Reason, and decency to living people with medical needs will finally prevail over doctrinaire Bush intransigence. With Bush gone, the process that way becomes easier.
And indeed, Bush has left a shelf full of questionable executive orders and signing statments that Obama, presumably on his sole authority, as Presidential successor, could Constitutionally amend and correct unilaterally.