The platform for the GOP will now include a total ban on even private funding for embryonic stem cell research:
The 2008 Republican Platform Committee has finally reached the finish line, but before it crossed it tripped up on the issue of stem-cell research. When the committee reached the stem-cell language, North Carolina delegate Mary Summa offered what appeared on the surface to be a small change. Summa sought to change the sentence:
We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of and experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.
to read:
We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.
thus severing experimentation on human embryos from their creation for that purpose. It's just one word, but it has huge implications. It is a call for a total ban on embryonic stem-cell research, including privately funded research using frozen embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics. By contrast, the 2004 platform was in accord with President Bush's policy at the time, which made limited federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research available for the first time.
Does McCain agree with this? The Christianists just gave the Democrats one hell of a reverse wedge issue. McCain's GOP is now officially more neocon than Bush in foreign policy and more theocon in social policy. It is an intensification - not a rebuke - of the Bush-Cheney model of conservatism.