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Stem Cell Backers Urge Bush to Reconsider Veto Threat

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 July 2006, 00:50 CDT

By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON -- Backers of a bill expanding federally-funded embryonic stem cell research, set for a Senate vote this month, on Tuesday called on President George W. Bush to withdraw his threat to cast the first veto of his presidency.

"It would be a terrible disservice to the American people, the hopes of millions, that President Bush would veto this," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters.

"Our strategy is to get this on the floor and rely upon the good will of the president to help millions and millions of people," added Reid. Advocates of the research say it could lead to treatments for many debilitating diseases including Parkinson's and diabetes.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the embryonic stem cell bill a year ago. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican who is a physician, backed the bill in a rare break with Bush and recently announced a deal in the Senate to consider the legislation soon, possibly next week.

It is expected to pass easily with support of most Democrats and a significant number of Republicans, though not necessarily by the necessary two thirds margin to override an eventual veto.

The White House on Tuesday said that Bush is still determined to veto the legislation because research involves the destruction of human embryos.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius, traveling with the president in Milwaukee, said, "This legislation crosses an important moral line. He doesn't think we need to choose between science and ethics, and within the right policies we can have both. He will veto this bill."

The Senate will also take up two other less controversial bills, both of which are expected to pass. One outlaws "fetal farming" or creating fetuses for the purpose of using their tissue or organs for research.

The other allows research using other forms of stem cells that are not derived from embryos. Many scientists say that research, while worthwhile, does not have as much promise as the embryonic stem cell approach.

Some lawmakers who normally share Bush's opposition to abortion nevertheless back embryonic stem cell research because of its potential. The bill allows research on embryos left over from fertility treatments that would otherwise be discarded.

"We shouldn't shackle the hands and minds of scientists," said Oregon Republican Gordon Smith, who said he hoped Bush would abandon the veto threat.

Bush in 2001 allowed federally-funded research on a limited number of stem cell lines or colonies then in existence. Researchers said few turned out to be useful and none can be used in humans because they are contaminated with mouse cells.

Source: REUTERS

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