Embryonic stem-cell research is a hot topic in the upcoming elections in the United States. John Kerry has said that one of his first acts if elected president will be to reverse the Bush administration policy of no federal funding for ESC research. And in California, voters will decide whether or not to invest $3 billion of state money in ESC research over the next 10 years, an initiative that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger endorses, thus placing him in opposition to his own Republican Party.
Over there it's a controversial issue, but in Japan it isn't. Last July, a bioethics study group appointed by the prime minister's office recommended allowing therapeutic embryos to be cloned for ESC research. They also said that aborted embryos could be used.
These proposals could be controversial, but the research is already underway using the "resources" mentioned, so the study group, which also said that embryos should be treated with "dignity" even though they were "not exactly" living things, was essentially providing lip service for the government, which has already decided ESC research is the way to go.