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Mr. Speaker, the goal of stem cell research should be to help our fellow human beings. The debate on this issue has, unfortunately, moved into dangerous unethical territory when perfectly moral alternatives exist.

You cannot be against embryonic stem cell research and be intellectually and therefore morally consistent, if you're not also against in vitro fertilization.

Today, it is research with human embryonic stem cells and attempts to prepare cloned stem cells for research and medical therapies that are being disavowed as being ethically unacceptable.

Stem cell research must be carried out in an ethical manner in a way that respects the sanctity of human life.

To date, embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single medical treatment, where ethical, adult stem cell research has produced some 67 medical miracles.

The first misconception is that embryonic stem cell research is not legal. The fact is, embryonic stem cell research is completely legal. Research on embryonic stem cells has taken place for years.

There are many alternatives to embryonic stem cell research, alternatives with great potential. We need to support these and oppose creating life for the sole purpose of destroying it.

We have a lot to gain through furthering stem cell research, but medical breakthroughs should be fundamentally about saving, not destroying, human life. Therefore, I support stem cell research that does not destroy the embryo.

In fact, many nations currently refuse to support embryonic stem cell research of any kind.

Sadly, embryonic stem cell research is completely legal in this country and has been going on at universities and research facilities for years.