My comments relate to the Aug. 30 column from the Kansas City Star on public financing of embryo-destructive stem cell research.

Every year since 1996, Congress passed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, clearly prohibiting public funding of research in which human embryos are destroyed, not just the piece of the project in which the embryo is destroyed. Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision is consonant with the amendment.

Voters, through the congressional legislative process, recognized necessary and appropriate boundaries for publicly-funded research.

The legal action was brought by adult stem cell researchers who insist that last year’s executive order by President Barack Obama did not recognize the consultation process that included 50,000 public comments to the National Institutes of Health challenging the expanded public funding of embryo-destructive research as arbitrary agency action.

The promise of successful treatments using human stem cells has clearly been achieved by using stem cells from numerous non-embryonic sources. The issue is the destruction of human embryos.

In this era of artificial reproductive technologies, the existence of cryogenically preserved embryos does not make them a surplus commodity for experimentation.

Federal funding is public funding, reflecting the values of citizens who pay taxes for the public good of citizens of all ages and stages of life. Destructive embryonic stem cell research does not and will not meet that standard.

Meg Yates, Wilton