President Vetoes Stem Cell Bill

Stem Cell Research & Cloning Forum

Bush vetoes embryonic stem-cell bill
House fails to muster votes for override
Thursday, July 20, 2006 Posted: 1556 GMT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush used his veto power Wednesday for the first time since taking office 5 1/2 years ago, saying that an embryonic stem-cell research bill "crossed a moral boundary."

The bill, which the Senate passed Tuesday, 63-37, would have loosened the restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research.

House Republican leaders tried Wednesday evening to override the veto, but that vote was 235 to 193, short of the necessary two-thirds majority.

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush said Wednesday afternoon. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it."

Attending the White House event were a group of families with children who were born from "adopted" frozen embryos that had been left unused at fertility clinics.

"These boys and girls are not spare parts," he said of the children in the audience. "They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research. They remind us that we all begin our lives as a small collection of cells."

The measure, which the House of Representatives passed in May 2005, allows couples who have had embryos frozen for fertility treatments to donate them to researchers rather than let them be destroyed.

Bush said, "If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos, and I'm not going to allow it."

In August 2001, Bush announced that his administration would allow federal funding only for research on about 60 stem-cell lines that existed at the time. Researchers have since found that many of those lines are contaminated and unusable for research.

Scientists say stem cells could be a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, strokes, burns and more.

The issue has split the Republican Party, with Bush siding with the Catholic Church and social conservatives against the GOP's more moderate voices.

The Senate bill's principal sponsor, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, who recently survived a brush with cancer, was joined by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, a physician who argued that Bush's policy is too restrictive.

"I am pro-life, but I disagree with the president's decision to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act," Frist said in a statement. "Given the potential of this research and the limitations of the existing lines eligible for federally funded research, I think additional lines should be made available."

Also in a statement, Lawrence T. Smith, chairman of the American Diabetes Association, called the veto "a devastating setback for the 20.8 million American children and adults with diabetes -- and those who love and care for them."

Opponents argue that other alternatives, such as adult stem cells, are available. Two companion bills -- one to promote alternative means of developing stem-cell lines from sources such as placental blood and another to ban the commercial production of human fetal tissue, also known as "fetal farming" -- passed the Senate in 100-0 votes.

On Tuesday evening, the House approved the "fetal farming" bill 425-0 but didn't pass the measure promoting alternative stem-cell sources when backers failed to achieve the two-thirds majority that House rules required. The vote on the alternative-sources bill was 273-154.

Bush signed the "fetal farming" legislation and urged Congress to fund alternative research.

"I'm disappointed that the House failed to authorize funding for this vital and ethical research," he said. "It makes no sense to say that you're in favor of finding cures for terrible diseases as quickly as possible and then block a bill that would authorize funding for promising and ethical stem-cell research."

A House GOP aide said that the leadership would bring the funding bill back to the floor at another time under a different set of rules that would require a simple majority to pass the measure.

This was a few days ago, but the news is still going, and it's simply a hot topic. It honestly makes me sick to think of him vetoing this bill, and using babies as his excuse... like they wouldn't have existed if not for bans like this. But the thing is, stem cells that are not used for research are simply thrown out. He can't pretend like he's doing this for moral reasons, because there is no moral reason not to help paralyzed people and those with Parkinsons, etc. It was religious reasons, through and through... which is bang out of order, I think.

Democrats: Stem-cell veto cynical political move
'Last-gasp effort to stop stem cell research a roadblock to progress'

Saturday, July 22, 2006 Posted: 1535 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- -- A Colorado congresswoman said Saturday that President Bush was motivated by "cold, calculated, cynical political gain" when he vetoed a bill that would expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

"The president's veto had nothing to do with morals," Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, said in the Democrats' weekly radio address, but instead "the kind of politics that snuffs out the candle of hope and that condemns the disabled and the sick."

DeGette and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Delaware, co-sponsored the bill, which would allow federal funds to be used in research on embryos derived from fertility treatments that would otherwise be discarded.

Supporters, who include former first lady Nancy Reagan, say embryonic stem-cell research could lead to cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer and Parkinson's. However, the process destroys the embryo, considered a human life by many opponents of the research.

The bill passed the House last year and senators approved it Tuesday. Bush had made no secret of his opposition. On Wednesday he issued the first veto of his presidency, saying he did not want to destroy life in the name of science.

DeGette called Bush's veto "a sad sidebar in a debate that has been about ethical scientific research and hope."

DeGette said the embryos used would not be those that would have been for in-vitro fertilization but those that would be considered medical waste. "It makes more sense to allow them to be donated to give life and health to people in need," she said.

"The veto has backfired already, putting the spotlight on his stubborn resistance to facts," she said. "This last-gasp effort to stop stem cell research will be viewed by historians as a sign more of the weakness of the opponents than a roadblock to progress."

The abortion issue is also a controversial one, and I can kind of see this topic from that point of view... but at the same, it should be considered on its own merits and not those of another topic. I can't imagine a woman choosing whether or not to get an abortion based on whether she can get money for it, but that's simply because I don't know someone as sick as that. Until recently I didn't know there was monetary compensation provided for that kind of thing, to be honest. Creepy.

Anyway, hopefully other Countries can pick up the slack as far as biotechnological research goes. They weren't close to being the leaders in this field as it was, and they're just going downhill... I guess it's just gonna cost a lot of money to obtain biotechnology in the future, I guess.