Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally challenged a court order by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to suspend the federal funding of stem-cell research. Lamberth?s injunction, issued on Aug. 23, blocked President Obama?s push for public endowment on the basis that such funding violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. The amendment was a ?rider? to a 1995 bill, meaning that it would never have passed as its own legislation, and thus was added onto a distantly related proposal. Dickey-Wicker specifically bars public funding for the creation and endangerment of embryonic cells for research purposes.
Office of Strategic Communication