PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – President-elect Barack Obama signaled Friday that he might not use his executive authority to reverse Bush-era limits on stem cell research, but instead might wait for Congress to change the policy.
Obama pledged during the campaign to lift the restrictions, and political observers had expected him to move swiftly to reverse President Bush’s 2001 executive order – most likely with his own executive order.
But the president-elect suggested Friday that he would wait for Congress to weigh in on the issue.
“Well, if we can do something legislative then I usually prefer a legislative process because those are the people's representatives,” Obama said in a CNN interview. “And I think that on embryonic stem cell research, the fact that you have a bipartisan support around that issue, the fact that you have Republicans like Orrin Hatch who are fierce opponents of abortion and yet recognize that there is a moral and ethical mechanism to ensure that people with Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's can actually find potentially some hope out there, you know, I think that sends a powerful message.
“So we're still examining what things we'll do through executive order,” Obama continued. “But I like the idea of the American people's representatives expressing their views on an issue like this.”
Bush barred the National Institutes of Health from funding stem cell research that destroyed embryos – a position favored by anti-abortion groups — but he allowed research to continue on several dozen cell lines in existence when he signed the executive order in August 2001.
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