U.S. Appeals Court: Government can fund stem cell research

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia refused to order the Obama administration to stop funding embryonic stem cell research on Friday. This ruling comes despite complaints that the research is dependent on destroyed human embryos. Opponents to the research claim the National Institutes for Health (NIH) is violating the 1996 Dickey-Wicker law which prohibits taxpayer financing for work that harms an embryo. The judges were unanimous, however, in upholding the lower courts decision to throw out the case entirely. This is the second time the appeals court has said that federal funding of stem cell research was permissible.