House to debate expanded stem cell research
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Legislation that would loosen restrictions on government funding of embryonic stem cell research headed for debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday under a veto threat from President Bush.
Bush, who has yet to veto a bill during his presidency, planned to join the debate from the White House with a speech about why the government should stick with his policy.
In 2001 Bush allowed federal funding for stem cell research but limited it to 78 stem cell lines that existed as of Aug. 9, 2001. Advocates of expanded research are pressuring Congress to change the policy, hoping stem cells will one day lead to medical advances on such diseases as Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
The legislation the House will debate was sponsored by Delaware Republican Rep. Mike Castle and Democratic Rep. Diane DeGette of Colorado. It would essentially lift the cutoff date of Bush’s policy by allowing federal funds to be spent on stem cells derived from human embryos created for fertility clinics that would otherwise discard them.
A Castle spokeswoman, Lisa Godlewski, said Castle expected a vote to approve the measure on Tuesday but was not speculating on the margin of victory.
It would take a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, which has yet to take up the legislation, to override a veto that Bush threatened last week. White House officials doubted the Castle-DeGette measure would gain enough votes to override a presidential veto.
Stem cells are primitive cells that have the ability to transform themselves into many other types of cells, offering the potential for regenerating damaged organs or tissue. A stem cell line is a reservoir of stem cells derived from a single human embryo.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush will argue that his 2001 decision was made “with a moral and ethical context and that science doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.”
To bolster that point, he will appear with a group of children “adopted” as embryos from fertility clinics.
Bush said last week the legislation would violate his principles.
“I’ve made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers’ money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life - I’m against that. And therefore if the bill does that, I will veto it,” he said.
Opponents of expanded stem cell research equate the destruction of an embryo to harvest stem cells to abortion and say it could lead to human cloning.
Proponents say using the cells has nothing to do with abortion because the embryos would be destroyed anyway.
They say more than 100 new cell lines have been created worldwide since Bush’s decision and they should be studied with federal funds in research that could lead to cures for a range of devastating conditions.
Researchers can use private money as they wish.
Last week South Korean scientists said they had taken a first step toward the promise of stem cell research, using cloning technology to take a plug of skin from nine different patients, male and female, adults and children, to produce batches of stem cells genetically identical to the patients.
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