Washington – Rep. Diana DeGette’s quest to vastly increase embryonic stem-cell research appears headed for a vote in the Senate – and a potential showdown with President Bush.
Supporters are confident that DeGette’s bill, HR 810, will pass the Senate after winning approval in the House last year, but Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto it.
DeGette, D-Denver, wants a chance to talk Bush out of his first-ever veto, arguing that the research offers the opportunity to find ways to ease suffering for people with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Type 1 diabetes and other illnesses.
“All I request is that he sit down face to face with me and let me try to explain the impact this bill will have on the millions of people who suffer from these diseases,” DeGette said in a phone call last week from London, where she traveled to learn about the United Kingdom’s stem-cell research.
In May 2005, DeGette helped assemble an unlikely bipartisan coalition to pass a stem-cell bill in the House over the objections of GOP House leaders, Bush and social conservatives.
Last July, she gained a key ally: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who endorsed the Senate version of the bill. Other Senate backers range from Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah to Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California.
Opponents of DeGette’s bill, such as Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, say embryonic stem-cell research is unproven. They’re counting on Bush to kill the measure.
“We’d prefer for the Senate to stop (the bill) there,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, Focus on the Family’s senior policy analyst for bioethics. “But if not, the president says he’ll veto it. That would be his first veto. That says a lot about how seriously he is defending his policy under his watch.”
Bush, Focus on the Family and anti-abortion activists oppose the measure because it allows tax dollars to be used on research that destroys human embryos.
DeGette’s bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., would allow federal spending for research work only on embryos left over from in vitro fertilization and donated by permission of couples without payment.
The bill would knock down Bush’s executive order of Aug. 9, 2001, which limited federal research funding to the 60 embryonic stem-cell lines already in existence on that date.
There is disagreement about how many of those lines are left and whether any are viable. Scientists say they need thousands of lines for research.
Embryonic stem-cell research is unparalleled in its potential to find treatments and cures, many scientists say. Stem cells can divide without limit and can be manipulated to become almost any type of cell in the body.
Many scientists believe that stem cells might one day be used to develop treatments to repair cells that have been damaged or destroyed.
“The potential is extraordinary,” said John Sladek, vice chancellor for research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. “Stem-cell therapies will be able to address almost every disease that we know of.”
The United States is at least a decade behind other nations in the research, he said.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., could not be reached for comment on the bill. In the past, he has declined to say how he would vote on it.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., supports it, calling it “a measured, responsible step toward tapping into the vast potential that embryonic stem-cell research has with respect to finding cures for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and a wide range of other devastating diseases.”
No date has been set for a vote on the stem-cell bill. Frist is negotiating an agreement with Republicans to allow a vote.
“The goal is to do something before the end of summer,” Frist spokeswoman Caroline Weyforth said. “They are working behind the scenes to find the best way to bring it to the floor.”
It’s likely the bill will be brought up at the same time as other bills dealing with stem cells. It’s unclear which bills those will be, but DeGette said from what she knows, none would be damaging to her bill.
Other bills that might be considered include one from Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. – an ardent opponent of embryonic stem-cell research – that would ban growing embryos explicitly for such a purpose.
Another possibility is legislation from Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., that would require the National Institutes of Health to try to find types of cells other than embryonic that could become stem cells.
The Senate would need 67 votes to override a veto of DeGette’s bill, which Hatch believes is possible, said his spokesman Peter Carr.
But the bill in the House passed on a 238-194 vote, short of the two-thirds needed for an override.
About the bill
The stem-cell bill would allow federal research on human embryonic stem cells under these conditions:
Research would involve only leftover embryos created for fertility treatment and donated by in vitro fertilization clinics.
Only embryos that otherwise would be discarded could be used.
The patients who sought the fertility treatment would have to give written informed consent and not receive any financial or other inducements.
