Senate Approves Three Stem Cell Bills

c. 2006 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ After a complex medical and ethical debate, the Senate passed three bills related to embryonic stem-cell research Tuesday (July 18), including one that would expand federal funding in the controversial field of scientific study. Though the House of Representatives and President Bush are expected to quickly approve two […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ After a complex medical and ethical debate, the Senate passed three bills related to embryonic stem-cell research Tuesday (July 18), including one that would expand federal funding in the controversial field of scientific study.

Though the House of Representatives and President Bush are expected to quickly approve two of the three bills, the president has vowed to veto the third, which would increase government support for research that employs human embryos.


The Senate’s 63-37 vote to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research mirrors a bill the House passed in 2005. However, neither chamber appears to have the two-thirds majority necessary to override the president’s veto, which would be Bush’s first.

On Monday, a White House statement said that “the administration strongly opposes Senate passage,” of embryonic stem cell research. “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.”

The two other bills, which both passed with 100-0 tallies, outlaw research on embryos from so-called “fetal farms” and encourage scientists to explore methods of obtaining stem cells without using human embryos. The House and the president are expected to swiftly approve both bills.

In August 2001, Bush restricted the use of federal funds to study only embryos that had been destroyed prior to that date. Critics say that many of those stem cell lines are damaged and there are not enough for medical research.

But under pressure from patients’ rights and medical groups, who say stem cell research holds promise for a host of ailments, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., agreed to put the fund expansion bill up to a vote.

And while polls indicate that a majority of Americans support embryonic stem cell research, some prominent Christians _ including Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson and Roman Catholic cardinals _ oppose the measure, putting conservative politicians in a tight spot.

Bush, as well as Christian conservative activists and the Roman Catholic Church, consider any attempt to use human embryos for medical research unethical.


Following Tuesday’s vote, Gail Quinn, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said that the “U.S. Senate has done a disservice to human life and to medical progress.”

Other groups that lined up against the expansion of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research include Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and Christian Defense Coalition.

On the other side, a bevy of medical groups, including the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, the American Medical Association and the American Diabetes Association, support embryonic stem cell research.

In recent months, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, an online grass-roots group, bought full-page ads in newspapers, lambasting conservative religious leaders like Dobson, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell for holding stem cell legislation “hostage.”

The two other bills approved by the Senate Tuesday do not appear to have as much medical promise as embryonic stem cell research, according to scientists and patients’ rights groups, but they are far less controversial.

Because embryonic stem cells can be made into any kind of cell, many scientists consider them to be important steps toward finding cures for a variety of ailments _ from Parkinson’s disease to diabetes.


But the human embryo is essentially destroyed in the process, leading conservative Christians and the Catholic Church to condemn the procedure as tantamount to abortion.

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In a July 12 letter to senators, Cardinal William Keeler, Catholic archbishop of Baltimore and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Activities, wrote that “technical progess that makes humans themselves into mere raw material for research is in fact a regress of our humanity.”

However, the Catholic Church, Keeler noted, does support the two other bills approved by the Senate Tuesday.

One of those bills, which was co-sponsored by Sens. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., both of whom are conservative Catholics, outlaws research on embryos from so-called “fetal farms.” Under that bill, no research would be allowed on human embryos gestated in a non-human uterus or from human pregnancies initiated solely for scientific purposes.

Santorum, who is facing a tough battle for re-election this November, also co-sponsored the third bill with fellow Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter. The Specter-Santorum bill would encourage research into methods of obtaining stem cells with the same properties as embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos.

Although the President’s Council on Bioethics laid out four potential procedures for deriving these kinds of stem cells, critics say it will take years before they are operational and that the National Institutes of Health already has the ability to study those procedures without the legislation.


AMB/JL END BURKE

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