Faith + Reason = Truth

This may not win me many scientifically-minded friends, but expressing tightly held moral convictions isn't typically designed to do that anyway, is it?  Let me start by saying I strongly support President Bush's ban on federal funding for certain types of stem cell research involving certain human embryo classifications.  An embryo is human life and should not be destroyed, and it is that black and white to my sensibilities.  The recent announcement of possibly accomplishing some of the objectives of embryonic stem cell research through non-embryonic means illustrates that there is usually an array of options in life:  the simple path or the easy path, the right way or the wrong, the many or the few, the selfish or the altruistic, and so forth.
In my "day job," there are people who work with financial systems, which is another area that offers choices of possible solutions to problems.  Invariably, when a problem presents itself, there is a known "quick fix" that usually affects something else adversely if implemented, and that is contrasted against an unknown potential different path that could accomplish the same objective without adversely affecting other things.  Naturally, the people responsible for making the fix are inclined to go with what they know, fixing the problem, and dealing with the negative outcomes of that action when they manifest themselves; fortunately for the company though, there are other "non-fixers" involved in the decision making process who occasionally insist that another solution be discovered or invented, a solution that doesn't have the adverse impact on other processes.
And guess what?  The fixers ALWAYS come up with something that fits the bill:  it achieves the stated objective with no adverse impact to other processes.  If someone hadn't forced them to innovate (or at least think a little longer and harder about the problem), then they would follow the natural human tendency to go with what we know, do what works, and clean up the resulting messes later.  I see a striking parallel between this situation and the one involving the stem cell research.  Scientists want to take the ball and run with it, and understandably so, because they are after the solution that benefits the many at the expense of the few (if they even consider embryos to be humans at all).  And they obviously want sooner rather than later.  But by forcing them to look harder, think longer, innovate, etc., President Bush's policy may have resulted in a breakthrough by those very same scientists that will accomplish the stated objectives without destroying more human embryos, or more human beings, if you will.  These are tough choices to make, tough stands to make, but when dealing with moral issues and decisions such as this, it's far better to err on the side of protecting those who cannot protect themselves than to intentionally, unintentionally, or potentially commit acts and crimes against humanity that we are simply too ignorant to be aware that we are committing them.