"In a talk sponsored by the Yale Stem Cell Interest Group, actor Christopher Reeve said science, not religion, should drive the debate over stem cell research. Social and religious conservatives have robbed American scientists of their chance to play a leading role in the promising field of stem cell research, actor and writer Christopher Reeve said during a visit to the medical school in April. “We’re giving away our pre-eminence in science and medicine,” he said. “We’re going to lose incredibly valuable time. “When matters of public policy are being decided, no religion should have a seat at the table—that is what is provided for in the Constitution,” Reeve said. Yet religious conservatives, including the Pope, he said, “have an undue influence in the debate.” Because of their plasticity—their ability to differentiate into any cell in the human body—stem cells “have unlimited potential to cure disease,” Reeve told the crowd that filled the auditorium of the Anylan Center for Medical Research and Education. Reeve also hopes that stem cell research will lead to a cure for paralysis such as his, the result of a 1995 riding accident. In a talk sponsored by the Yale Stem Cell Interest Group, Reeve criticized President Bush’s order of August 9, 2001, restricting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to only 64 extant cell lines. (Last May, National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., acknowledged that only 11 of those lines were eligible for federal research funds.) Reeve suggested that the decision made no ethical sense in light of Bush’s objection to using embryos for research. “Those lines were derived from leftover embryos from infertility clinics. Did he suddenly develop a new morality effective August 10th?” Reeve noted that, although typically about a third of embryos are discarded as medical waste, even vocal opponents of using embryos for research have never suggested banning in vitro fertilization. “They know very well that you can’t go to a couple and say, ‘You can’t have a child this way.’”"