Reagan in the News Again

Sometimes people do unexpected things.  Here is an excerpt of an article from New York Daily News that shows one influential person speaking her own mind, despite the party line. 

Nancy Reagan backs stem cell research

By BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
May 10, 2004

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan is butting heads with President Bush and conservatives over the controversial issue of human embryonic research.

The wife of Republican icon Ronald Reagan voiced strong support Saturday for the science that could lead to a cure for a wide range of diseases - including Alzheimer's, which has stricken her husband.

But such laboratory studies have been branded taboo by Bush and Pope John Paul, who oppose the research because it involves the destruction of days-old human embryos.

"I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this," Reagan said at a Beverly Hills, Calif., gala for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. [...]

Now, Nancy Reagan is not a policy expert, and she is not a scientist.  But she is a person of some social prominence.  I am hopeful that her comments will invigorate the debate on stem cell research.  Perhaps some persons who had not given the matter much serious thought, thinking the matter closed because their party said so, will now think again about the potential benefits of this technology.