President [George W. Bush] has done nothing to stop or even discourage these various government promotions of in vitro fertilization. In his Aug. 9 television address on stem cell research, Bush actually praised IVF as a "process . . . which helps so many couples conceive children." Yet the unavoidable assumption built into his policies on the use of embryos in medical research is that in vitro fertilization is deeply evil.

Stem cell research does not cause the creation or destruction of a single additional embryo. It uses embryos that are routinely discarded as part of IVF. Once a stem cell line is created, it can be reproduced in the laboratory and requires no embryos at all. So Bush's ban on federally funded stem cell research involving embryos destroyed after Aug. 9 will not directly save any embryo's life. His rationale is that allowing such research implies federal government approval of the creation and destruction of embryos, and thus may encourage it indirectly. Meanwhile, the government encourages and even subsidizes IVF directly, Bush praises it, and has done nothing to stop it.

The cloning issue is a bit different. Some folks oppose cloning on grounds of where this all might lead. But Bush's objection, near as one can tell, is to the destruction of embryos here and now. Cloning does involve the creation and destruction of new embryos, not just using surplus embryos from IVF. And since the medical promise of cloning is replacement tissues genetically identical to the person who needs them, creating and destroying embryos would be part of the treatment itself, not just the original research. Even so, the number of embryos involved will never approach the number discarded or lost routinely in IVF.