.bmp)
.bmp)
Conservative groups are welcoming the removal of an anti-life measure from a massive appropriations bill that includes education funding.Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has stripped language from the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that sought to expand taxpayer-funded embryonic stem-cell research. Harkin's provision would have overturned President Bush's policy regarding human embryonic stem cell research. The move by Harkin came after the president threatened to veto the bill because of the embryo-destructive provision and an "excessive" level of spending.David Christensen, director of congressional affairs at the Family Research Council in Washington, DC, says while the removal of the embryo-destructive language is "good news," the bill still contains troublesome elements."The Senate version of the bill reduces the funding for abstinence-only education program by about $28 million," Christensen explains. "And [it] actually rewrites the definitions of abstinence programs so that [the money for] all those programs that are being funded every year ... through this bill ... would then be opened up to comprehensive sex-ed programs."The House version of the Labor-HHS bill includes an increase in abstinence education funding, setting up a showdown between both chambers on the differing abstinence provisions.As in the days of Noah....
