CHICAGO, June 18, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “To honor the memory of former President Ronald Reagan,” a press release claims, is the intention of renaming the Stem Cell Research Act to now be known as the Ronald Reagan Biomedical Research Act.
The bill before the Illinois Senate proposes the legalization of embryonic stem cell research for the state. State Senator Jeffrey Schoenberg (D-9th District) is the chief sponsor of the bill, while Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-12th District) was the chief sponsor in the House. The stem cell bill passed narrowly in the House 60-56 earlier this year, but failed to pass the Illinois Senate, where another vote is still pending. “Creating life for the purposes of experimentation is a road that many of us don’t want to go down,” state Senator Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton) said, as reported by the Chicago Sun Times. Roskam called the renaming of the bill a “gimmick” that he feels will not sway any voters. Charles Colson, in his BreakPoint column, quotes from William Clark’s New York Times article, For Reagan, All Life Was Sacred: “Reagan ‘would have asked the marketplace question: If human embryonic research is so clearly promising as the researchers assert, why aren’t private investors putting [their] money into it, as they are in adult stem-cell research?’ The answer is obvious,” Colson continues: “Embryonic research is not only far less ethical than adult stem-cell research, but it’s also far less promising.” President Reagan’s Personhood Proclamation, made in 1988, states: “I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America… do hereby proclaim and declare the unalienable personhood of every American, from the moment of conception until natural death . . .”
Read former President Reagan’s Personhood Proclamation at: https://www.nrlc.org/ReaganProclamation.html
Read Charles Colson’s BreakPoint Column at: https://www.pfm.org/BPtemplate.cfm?Section=BreakPoint_Commentaries1&CONTENTID=12667&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm
Read the LifeSiteNews.com Commentary by John Muggeridge: Ronald Reagan: Pro-Lifer in Office https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jun/04060701.html