But he was for it before he was against it.
The Washington Post reports,
… Speaking at a Baptist church in Winter Park on Saturday, the former speaker received a standing ovation when he declared that embryonic stem-cell research amounts to “the use of science to desensitize society over the killing of babies.”
And in a news conference Sunday, he said he would ban all embryonic stem-cell research, including that done on discarded embryos created by in vitro fertilization…
In 2001, when then-President George W. Bush was considering new guidelines for federal funding of stem-cell research, Gingrich had indicated in at least two interviews on Fox News that he would support using government money for research on embryos in fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded.
“For many of us, there’s a very, very real distinction between doing something with an unborn child, a fetus that is implanted, and doing something with cells in a fertility clinic that are otherwise going to be destroyed,” Gingrich said in one of the interviews, on July 10, 2001.
In the other, 10 days later, he added: “I think that there are ways to have appreciation for life, to recognize the sanctity of life, but nonetheless to look at fertility clinics where there are cells that are sitting there that are not going to be used to create life. They literally today, they’re unregulated, they can be thrown away. And I think the president, I hope the president, will find a way to agree that there ought to be federally funded research.”