House Votes to Reverse Ban on Funding for Stem Cell Research

NY Times ^ | May 24, 2005 | DAVID STOUT and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

[neverdem]

WASHINGTON, May 24 - The House of Representatives voted today to ease restrictions on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, thus setting up a showdown with President Bush, who has vowed to veto the measure because he says it would promote destruction of life.

The 238-to-194 vote in favor, far short of the 290 needed to override a presidential veto, sends the issue to the Senate, where an identical measure is pending. Stem cell research has considerable support in the Senate as well. Its chief sponsor is Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who heads the Senate subcommittee that controls federal financing for medical research.

Fifty House Republicans broke with President Bush to vote with 187 Democrats and the chamber's sole independent, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, in favor of the bill. Fourteen Democrats joined 180 Republicans in voting against it. The House's action, and the likelihood of approval in the Senate as well, sets the stage for the first veto to be cast by President Bush, who reiterated his opposition this afternoon to the current legislation.

Hours before the House vote, Mr. Bush said that despite the potential for medical breakthroughs, that the use of human embryos in the studies was too high a cost to pay.

"This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life," the president said at the White House. "Crossing this line would be a great mistake."

"Research on stem cells derived from human embryos may offer great promise, but the way those cells are derived today destroys the embryo," said the president who was speaking before a group of parents who had children using embryos that had been created for other couples using fertility treatments. President Bush has pledged to...

[neverdem]

ping

[Brilliant]

Where are they going to get the money to pay for it?

[mabelkitty]

Can tax increases be far behind?

[OldFriend]

To date embryonic stem cell research has NEVER shown any promise of curing any disease. On the contrary, several experimental tries on people have ended in the patient's death.

Other countries have used embryonic stem cell reseaerch with NO benefits.

This is nothing more than NARAL pushing this research in an unthinkable exploitation of desperately ill people.

[Northern Yankee]

Veto this damn thing right away.

[Peach]

Our Republican leadership has really let us down today.

I never thought I'd see the Republicans in the House do this.

This opens the way for the New Jersey embryo farm.

[Ingtar]

Two back stabs in two days.

RINO UPRISING!

[hocndoc]

And this is why I voted for and worked so hard for this President.
Thank God (and, "Please, God!") that he is a good man in the right place at the right time.

[hocndoc]

At one time, they were calling them "greenhouses."

[madprof98]

I never thought I'd see the Republicans in the House do this.

They seem to be having a contest with the Senate. Wonder who their McCain is.

[TerrisFriend]

I agree 100%. This is why we are very, very fortunate to have a President like George W. Bush. He will do the right thing and veto this horrendous legislation. One good thing about the past couple of days--he sure doesn't owe the Senate Judiciary any favors!

[Coleus]

Looks like it's a non issue even for conservatives

Action Alert, U.S. House votes May 24th on embryo-killing research, H.R. 810
	Posted by Coleus On News/Activism 05/22/2005 5:07:40 PM EDT · 6 replies · 221+ views

 

President Discusses Embryo Adoption and Ethical Stem Cell Research (Remarks on Bioethics)

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMENTS ON U.S. HOUSE AND WHITE HOUSE ACTIONS

ON STEM CELL RESEARCH

 

WASHINGTON (May 24, 2005) --  The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a bill to provide federal funds for stem cell research that would require killing human embryos -- but if the bill survives its uncertain future in the Senate, the President's promised veto will be sustained, according to the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), which opposes the bill.

 

"Under this bill, human embryos would be killed by the very act of harvesting their stem cells for government-funded research," commented NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. 

 

The House passed the bill by a margin of 238 to 194, which was 50 votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be required to override a veto.

 

The White House today issued an official statement of Administration policy that said in part, "The bill would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the President's policy that supports research without promoting such ongoing destruction.  If H.R. 810 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."  To read the complete statement, click here.

 

In addition, at the White House, President Bush spoke to a group that included many children who were adopted when they were still embryos.  The President said:  "The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo. Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being.  And each of us started out our life this way.  These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts."  The complete remarks are here.

 

NRLC's Johnson commented:  "The biotechnology industry will not be satisfied with exploiting only embryos donated by parents -- in fact, they are already seeking to create human embryos by cloning, for the specific purpose of harvesting their parts for research.  Unless Congress acts promptly to ban human cloning, as many other nations have already done, biotech labs will establish what President Bush in the past has called 'human embryo farms.'"

 

Enactment of a ban on human cloning takes on new urgency in the wake of a May 19 report that researchers in South Korea had, in 11 cases, "successfully" created a clone of a person with a disease, killed the cloned embryo, harvested stem cells, and started a cell line of tissue genetically like that of the clone's parent-twin.

 

For additional information on H.R. 810, including links to important documents, click here.  For additional information on bills related to human cloning that are currently pending in Congress, click here.

 

By a vote of 431 to 1, the House today also approved the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act (H.R. 2520), sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), a bill to establish a new federal program to make stem cells extracted from umbilical cord blood available to patients who need them.  This bill was endorsed by President Bush and by NRLC.  In a statement of Administration policy released today, the White House said:  "Cord-blood stem cells, collected from the placenta and umbilical cord after birth without doing harm to mother or child, have been used in the treatment of thousands of patients suffering from more than 60 different diseases, including leukemia, Fanconi anemia, sickle cell disease, and thalassemia.  Researchers also believe cord-blood stem cells may have the capacity to be differentiated into other cell types, making them useful in the exploration of ethical stem cell therapies for regenerative medicine."

 

From this week's (May 30) edition of TIME magazine:  "Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Duke University Medical Center reported that infants born with a fatal nerve disorder have been helped -- and perhaps even saved -- by treatment with stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of healthy babies.  Of course, the stem cells used at Duke are not the kind that have caused so much anguish and debate in the U.S.  Because these cells are taken not from embryos but from cord or placenta blood, they are both more developed and less versatile than embryonic stem cells.  But they are also less controversial because no potential human lives are lost if the cells are destroyed.  Yet they seem to have great potential for battling certain illnesses."
 

To return to the NRLC Human Embryos index page, click here.

[NYer]

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.
CRF Pontifical Council for the Family, Charter of the Rights of the Family

Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Catholic Ping
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[Theodore R.]

Wonder who their McCain is.

Could it be the D.C. area congressman Thomas Davis, R-VA? Or how about those Californians Jerry Lewis or David Dreier?

[Theodore R.]

If so, you do know that this would be GWB's FIRST veto yet.

[COEXERJ145]

At least it didn't come anywhere close to getting enough votes to override the President's veto.

[sinkspur]

There are idjits on this very forum who say that George W. Bush has never done anything to protect innocent human life.

Is there any doubt he's going to veto this? I don't think so.

[Prolifeconservative]

"I never thought I'd see the Republicans in the House do this."

I am still stunned this legislation passed the House. What is going on? Usually we can count on the House to stick to it's conservative roots, at least moreso than the Senate.

Bush has yet to use the Veto for anything. I hope his pen get's used this time.