Posted on 07/29/2005 6:08:02 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Breaking with President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Friday he now supports legislation to remove some of the administration's limitations on embryonic stem cell research.
Frist, an abortion opponent who just last month said he did not support expanding federal financing of research on embryos, said his decision was consistent with both his experience as a physician and his anti-abortion stance.
"Now is the time to expand the president's policy because it's promising research, but it must be done in a way that is ethically considerate, that respects the dignity of human life," said Frist, who also is a heart and lung transplant surgeon.
The Tennessee Republican, who has been said to be eyeing a run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, said only stem cells from embryos that "would otherwise be discarded," not implanted in a woman or frozen indefinitely, should be considered for research.
Bush has threatened to veto legislation for expanded financial support for stem cell research. A bill to finance more stem cell research has passed the House, but has been stalled in the Senate. Frist's support could push it closer to passage and set up a confrontation with Bush.
Interviewed on ABC's "Good Morning America," Frist said his decision was based on policy, not politics.
Almost two-thirds of Americans say they support embryonic stem cell research and a majority of people say they would like to see fewer restrictions on taxpayer funding for those studies, according to recent polls.
"From those cells we have the potential for looking at those diseases that everybody knows about, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and others," Frist said.
The senator planned to further outline his policy in a speech on the Senate floor later Friday, explaining why he believes embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged, even though he is "strong pro-life" and considers the embryo to be "life in its earliest stage of development."
To many abortion opponents, the two views seem to conflict. Frist says they do not.
"I give huge moral significance to the human embryo, it is nascent human life, what that means is as we advance science, we treat that embryo with dignity, with respect," Frist said.
He credited Bush with opening the doors for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and said when this policy was announced in 2001, policy-makers thought 78 stem cell lines would be available. Since then, the number has dropped to 22.
"Those 22 cell lines are not of the quality for human application or human therapy, and that's why today I believe we need to modify that policy," Frist said.
When Bush announced his position on stem cell research, he said the government should pay only for research of stem cell colonies, or lines, that had already been created at that time, so that the "life or death" decision had already been made.
Frist said additional stem cells should be used, so long as there was a careful process of informed consent in which the parents had decided that the embryos should be discarded, not adopted or frozen.
Just another one with no backbone who will not stand by the president.
Who needs Democrats when the GOP does just fine promoting the culture of death all by itself?
Further, I suspect he knows he's not going to be president so he might as well betray his every professed belief for financial gain.
Rotten traitorous b*stard! And this is the GOP leadership???? Forget it! I am DONE with them. First they ginore the borders. Then they coddle the religion of murder. Now, what the heck? Let's cannibalize the unborn! The GOP is no better than the Democrats.
I will never vote for him. How dare he use the force of government to make all of us fund this atrocity. It can now be done privately by willing participants. Now I must violate my conscience every time I pay my taxes. SHAME ON FRIST FOR BEING ANTI FREEDOM AND ANTI LIFE!
What irks me the most is that he tries to redefine what it is. I no longer respect this man. We are all going to die. We may kill enough babies to find a cure for one disease only to die of something else. Ahhh...but in the meantime there is a lot of money to be made. All the state governments are drooling over the potential windfall, so no surprise a Presidential candidate is doing the same. BUT HE WILL NEVER GET MY VOTE!!!!!!!!
Frist is doing such a good job of trying to parse words and split hairs during his performance on C-Span this morning! I cringe every time I hear him say that federal funds are only to be used for "embryonic stem cells, or blastocytes that will, with certainty, be thrown away anyway". I don't need to be presented with medical terms and percentages to know all I need to know about this...killing innocent human life is wrong. Period.
I don't think that we were ever supposed to go down the road of invitro-fertilization. I don't think that God ever meant for us to have extra human beings lying around, only to be destroyed and thrown away later on!
We've passed the point of no return. We live in a society where the ends justifies the means. Sad.
Thanks a lot spineless, consciousless Frist for moving to advance human life and babies as a mere comodity for useable body parts like a junkyard.
Tradeing for Specter-points.
Exactly. We are just creating a market for them, so that they can say "look, it WILL cure this or that, so now we need to CREATE life so we can DESTROY life so that we can "save" life (they will just die of something else).
I will never trust Frist again.
This I have never understood
I'm sorry that you do not understand. That's the way it is anyway. It's called conscience. I will not vote for a baby killer if the position will give him power in these moral areas. The result, then, is up to God. I must do what is right with whatever power I have. That means I must vote for a moral person and not just a "lesser of two evils" person. Any time I have compromised on that I have lived to regret it. So I am learning from past mistakes.
Amen... If all of Americans voted right, not strategically, then our politicians would be held to account. I used to think that a vote to LIMIT the moral decline of this country against a quicker decline was justified. Well, I can no longer tell the difference. I wont be a party to the decline since I'll answer to God for every vote that I make.
Another misleading title to the article. But that's what the MSM does best.
This whole statement bothers me. Why are we creating embryos that "would otherwise be discarded" anyway? Also, why are Republicans simply taking this situation as a given? Why are we not challenging it?
Whats the difference if the right hand or left hand holds the gun while taking ones money to spend on what one sees as a grave evil?
Frist has girlie-man mannerisms. On that basis alone, he couldn't be elected President.
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