President G. W. Bush used the first veto of his presidency to reject legislation that would have increased funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Bush's rejection, which the media was barred from filming, is supposedly based on the falsehood that stems cells can only be harvested from aborted fetuses:

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush said. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect."

Stem cells can be harvested perfect safely from healthy embryos. According to this US government site (the National Institute of Health):

Pluripotent stem cells are isolated from human embryos that are a few days old. Cells from these embryos can be used to create pluripotent stem cell "lines" —cell cultures that can be grown indefinitely in the laboratory.

It is likely that there is another reason other than morality inducing Bush to oppose the decision. Perhaps it is as simple as appeasing his fundamentalist Christian base. The Associated Press photo above right, one will note, shows the staging of Bush's justification of the veto. Children are conspicuously placed in the background, possibly creating an association with child welfare in viewers of video and photographs of Bush's speech.

Source: Associated Press