Washington – President Bush vowed Friday to veto bipartisan legislation that would ease restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research and expressed deep concern about human-cloning research in South Korea.
The veto threat sets up a potential showdown between the president and the House of Representatives, which could vote as early as this week on a stem-cell bill.
The bill would permit federal funding for research on stem cells taken from days-old embryos stored in freezers at fertility clinics.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., a co-author of the legislation, said: “It’s disappointing that the president would threaten to use his first veto on a bill that holds promise for cures to diseases that affect millions of Americans.
“We hope that the president will discuss this issue with us and our Senate allies as the bill makes its way through the legislative process.”
The issue pits those like Bush, who believe stem-cell research verges on scientists immorally taking embryonic life, against people who say such stem cells come from abandoned embryos and can, through research, save lives by advancing medical science.
Human embryonic stem cells can develop into many different cell types in the body, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The stem cells are isolated from human embryos that are a few days old and can be used to create stem-cell lines – cell cultures that can be grown indefinitely in a laboratory.
Scientists can use the stem- cell lines in transplantation or for treatment of diseases.
Bush, after lengthy deliberation, placed limits in 2001 on federal funding for research on lines of embryonic stem cells that already had been collected.
“I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers’ money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life – I’m against that,” Bush said Friday during a White House photo session with Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen. “And therefore, if that bill does that, I will veto it.”
In his fifth year in office, Bush has yet to veto any bill.
This one, authored by DeGette and Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., has nearly 200 House members as co-sponsors. Supporters have launched ads using the words of former first lady Nancy Reagan, who favors expanded research.
Proponents of stem-cell research believe that it holds the potential to help find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, which killed former President Reagan; paralysis, which led to actor Christopher Reeve’s death; and Type I diabetes.
Even some abortion foes, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have spoken strongly in favor of the House bill and are pressing for a similar measure in the Senate.
“I think we can get it to the floor one way or another,” Hatch said.
The House measure faces opposition from some conservatives, such as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and religious groups that say the research is immoral because the embryo is destroyed in the process.
Bush and others worry that such potential advances would come at the expense of morality.
The president fretted Friday over news that South Korean scientists have developed a way of producing human embryos through cloning.
“I’m very worried about cloning,” he said. “I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable.”
Bush used the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington to affirm his positions on those questions.
Praising the late Pope John Paul II, Bush said: “The best way to honor this champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak.”
Staff writer Anne Mulkern contributed to this report.
