WASHINGTON, D.C., September 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– The U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia has
ordered that a district judge’s order blocking the National
Institute of Health’s (NIH) embryo-destroying stem-cell research
will be suspended while the appeals process works itself out.
The
order from Appeals Court judges Judith Rogers, Thomas
Griffith, and Brett Kavanaugh, followed two days after oral
arguments for and against U.S. District Chief Judge Royce
Lamberth’s August 23 injunction that banned the NIH from funding
further embryo-destroying research under the 1996 Dickey-Wicker
amendment.
Lamberth previously denied the U.S. Justice Department’s
request to stay his order, saying that Dickey-Wicker was
"unambiguous" in its intent, and therefore prohibits federal
dollars from going to research that destroys human embryos.
Lamberth’s order nullified President Barack Obama’s executive
order allowing the NIH to fund up to 75 new lines of stem cells
derived from human embryos, which are killed as soon as
researchers harvest their stem cells.
The D.C. Court of Appeals had granted the U.S. Justice
Department’s motion for an emergency stay on Lamberth’s order on
September 9, temporarily lifting Lamberth’s injunction while
they reviewed the merits of the government’s argument that the
banned scientific research would cause “irreparable harm.”
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