Hatch hails Obama for decision to lift stem-call funding ban - Diabetes and Stem Cell Research in Utah

Hatch hails Obama for decision to lift stem-call funding ban

March 6, 2009
Lee Davidson
Deseret News

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who has riled some conservatives for pushing for embryonic stem cell research, hailed President BarackObama's decision to lift the ban on federal funding on it.

Hatch said the decision "offers renewed hope to millions of Americans afflicted with diabetes, leukemia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries and a host of other ailments."

Hatch added, "It also is gratifying to those of us who have been strong advocates of this research and who have worked so hard over the past 7 years to overturn the ban, which has hampered our scientists from making progress to the fullest extent possible in this promising field of research that may hold the key to curing so many of the world's most deadly and debilitating diseases."

Hatch is pro-life on abortion, but has said that after prayer and contemplation he came to the conclusion that embryos in the earliest of stages when stem cells would be taken are not yet life.