Conservative leaders say the Georgia measure is the first of many such moves nationwide.
"You will see different efforts on the state level to protect the unborn and promote the culture of life," said Perkins. "State legislators have the ability to shape public policy from their vantage point, so we will see some creative responses to this executive order to counter its destructive outcome."
After Bush restricted funding to about 60 embryonic stem cell lines that existed before 2001, some states passed legislation or initiatives allocating funds or allowing for private donations to fund such research.
Hundreds of new stem cell lines that have since become available are now eligible for federal funding.
California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin passed legislation or initiatives to move ahead with research despite the federal ban, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Research is legal in Iowa and Missouri, though no funding was included in the legislation that allowed it.
Stem cell research is restricted in Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota, although in some cases, the courts have not yet ruled on the measures' legality.
Conservative leaders said they would lobby Congress to maintain a ban on using federal funds for research that creates or destroys human embryos. They also plan to advocate the use of induced pluripotent stem cells, which are artificially derived from adult cells, as an alternative to embryonic stem cells.
"We have no problem with research that does not result in the death of embryos. This would provide all the stem cell material necessary for research without causing unborn babies to be killed," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "This is very important to our community, and it will make a difference in how many of their constituents get their vote."
The problem with legislation like Georgia's, which attempts to establish the beginning of life, is that there is no clear mechanism to determine if or how embryos should be afforded constitutional and legal rights, bioethicists said. Such attempts have failed in several states, including South Carolina and Colorado.
The language also is contradictory, bioethicists said, because it attempts to guard against using embryos for research while supporting their use in assisted reproduction.
