Remember Stem Cell Research?

Der Monkey is still giving it the shaft, as much-needed federal funding dries up when it could really help out the research, advancing medicial science and helping humanity in the long run.

Imagine restoring memory to someone with Alzheimer's, giving a diabetic freedom from insulin injections, or helping a paralyzed person walk again. Such is the promise of embryonic stem cells -- or was, until the Bush administration cut off federal funding for labs harvesting new cell lines in August, 2001. As progress in this field depends heavily on government dollars, the pace of development slowed dramatically. And all, it seemed, because the president felt the need to pander to the religious right, tainting secular science with religious ideology.

...Many scientists are infuriated that the government is giving higher priority to a fertilized egg's right to life than to efforts to remedy devastating medical conditions for children and adults. Human embryos are byproducts from fertility clinics and are better put to use as a source of stem cells, they say, than left languishing in a freezer or discarded.

Ever since this issue came up in 2001, there's something that I didn't get: Shouldn't it be illegal to discard the fetilized egg's? I mean, the right to life movement gets up in arms about these embryos being used for stem cell research, comparing it to murder, yet they stay silent when these embryos are simply tossed in the garbage? Isn't that a bit hypocritical? If they are going to be discarded anyways, then why not use them for something?