When it comes to scientific and technological discoveries, every restriction placed upon the scientist or researcher limits the discoveries and the innovations that can be made. Pure research, that is, research for the purpose of discovering how things work i9n general, is often quite productive, but since the direction that the productivity might take is unpredictable, corporations who want to develop something they can sell tend not to fund it. This is where public funding comes in.
It seems that stemcell research is less a barrier than it once was, but the fact is that no one was deliberately aborting fetuses to harvest them, they were just being tossed out with the biotrash. After the federal funding was banned, even more were thrown away. There was no advantage gained by anyone. It was just dumb, based on the stupidity of some preachers and their flunky, Juniorbush.