  it always gets me that Americans are willing to keep guns in their homes, but insist that we couldn't handle the potential dangers of science.
Where's that good ol' American spirit we like to pull out of the back pocket of the country's collective Levis when it comes to the medical frontier, or even regulated healthcare. Sure some do it wrong, but we're Americans, we do things better, right? Anyway, Christopher Reeve certainly makes a powerful spokesman. Like he says, the good thing about progress is that it isn't dependent on Americans. If we don't lead the stem cell advance, we'll get our ass kicked by some other country that will, and they'll be laughing all the way to the bank!
urlLink Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What slippery slope? : "Politically, though, the issue is at a stalemate at a federal level in the US. There are two competing bills in the Senate - one that would allow somatic cell transfer and one that would ban it - and neither has enough votes.
At a state level, however, there have been successful initiatives in California and New Jersey. And I am hopeful that a number of states will pass their own legislation allowing research in the very near future, before the presidential elections. Meanwhile, I am grateful that countries around the world, led by the UK, Israel, Sweden, South Korea, Singapore, and a number of others, are going forward with research. Because they do, there will always be the option for patients to travel to those countries, or for the technology to be imported eventually.
The most important thing is that, somewhere in the world, the work is being done. " 
