Senate backs stem cell bill, Bush to veto

By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday strongly
backed bipartisan legislation to expand federally funded
embryonic stem cell research, but President George W. Bush has
vowed to veto the measure as morally indefensible.

The vote was 63-37, four short of the 67 that would be
needed to overturn the veto that could come on Wednesday. All
but one Democrat voted for the bill, while 19 Republicans
backed it and 36 opposed it.

The House of Representatives has approved the bill but
supporters there do not expect to have the two-thirds needed to
override a veto either.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the veto, Bush’s
first, would be “pretty swift.”

“He is fulfilling a promise that he has long made and he is
keeping it,” Snow said.

The Senate also passed unanimously two related — but less
controversial — bills which Bush planned to sign. The House
quickly passed one of them, to block “fetus farming,” or
implanting a human embryo in a woman or animal for the purpose
of harvesting cells or tissue.

But House Democrats blocked the second one which would
promote research to obtain stem cells without destroying an
embryo. That research is already being done and some Democrats
said the legislation was merely political cover for Republicans
who oppose the more far-reaching embryonic stem cell bill.

Embryonic stem cell research has been the center of an
ethical and political maelstrom and has become an issue in
several of this November’s congressional races.

Advocates and scientists cite the immense promise that stem
cells, identified less than a decade ago, hold for people with
diabetes, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s and other
illnesses.

STRONG PUBLIC SUPPORT

Opinion polls show strong public support for expanding
federally backed embryonic stem cell research and disease
advocacy groups have lobbied for it. Nancy Reagan, widow of
former President Ronald Reagan who died of Alzheimer’s, has
sought support from fellow Republicans.

But Bush says it is unacceptable because extracting the
stem cells, which have the potential to become any kind of
organ or tissue cells, means the days-old embryo is destroyed.

“This is about the value of human life,” said Pennsylvania
Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a strong foe of the research who
is in a tight election race. “It’s very easy — that little
embryo doesn’t have a pair of eyes, a hair color, it doesn’t
have a name. It’s very easy to dismiss this entity as
insignificant.”

Supporters, led by Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen
Specter and Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, pointed out that
the bill would permit research only on leftover embryos from
fertility treatment that would otherwise be discarded.

“These embryos are never going to be babies,” said
California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “Think of the
lives the embryos might save someday. People paralyzed.
Juvenile diabetes. Young people with Parkinson’s disease who
can’t move, who have trouble speaking.”

In 2001, Bush allowed federal funding on 78 stem cell lines
then in existence, but most of those turned out to be of
limited use to scientists who have pressed Congress to expand
federally funded research.

“This is what our leading scientists have told us they want
and need to move the field of stem cell research forward,” said
Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who like Bush opposes
abortion rights but broke with the president on this issue.

With Republicans divided, stem cell research has become an
issue in some congressional races this year and may play a role
in the 2008 presidential contest.

Of the five Republican senators considering seeking the
presidential nomination in 2008, three — George Allen of
Virginia, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska
– voted against it. Two, John McCain of Arizona and Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, broke with Bush and
supported expanding the research.