No Comment from the Plaintiff, Who is Still a Tiny Frozen Glob

KRT newservice reports on the dismissal by a federal appeals court of a 1999 lawsuit that alleged that all U.S. frozen embryos (400,000) are threatened by stem cell research, which required that they be destroyed. The suit, by Hagerstown, Minnesota based National Association for the Advancement of Preborn Children ("an embryo is a terrible thing to waste") - NAAPC - "sued the federal government on behalf of "Mary Doe," a name it chose for the nation's estimated 400,000 frozen embryos.

"You see, Mary Doe is coming into court and she says, 'I'm alive, and I'm a human being. Stem cell research is killing my brothers and sisters, and I may be next in line,'" said Rudolph M. Palmer, who founded the Hagerstown organization about 15 years ago.

In its appeal, NAAPC argued that present policies threaten the embryo every bit as much as the Clinton policies. "But a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to address the ethics of stem-cell research, agreeing Tuesday with a lower court that the issue was moot since it hinged on outdated Clinton administration policies."