Embryonic stem cells under a microscope. The direction of stem-cell research has been uncertain since August, when a U.S. judge ruled the federal government couldn’t pay for any research that involved destroyed embryos. As our colleagues at the WSJ’s Law Blog report , however, an appeals court has reversed that ruling. Here’s the appeals court’s full decision . As the Law Blog writes, of the 2-1 decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals: The Circuit Court said the National Institutes of Health reasonably concluded that government funding for embryonic stem-cell research is not prohibited by

a 1996 law that bars the use of federal money for research in which an embryo is destroyed. Writing for the majority, Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote that the “balance of equities tilts against” enjoining government funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells. ” The record shows private funding is not generally available for stem cell research,” the judge noted. Read the rest of the Law Blog post as well as the WSJ story on today’s news. Image: iStockphoto

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Appeals Court Says Embryonic Stem-Cell Research Can Proceed