Washington – With the Senate poised to vote on her bill allowing federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, Rep. Diana DeGette asked Thursday to meet with President Bush to persuade him not to veto the legislation.
“This would be his first veto, and he would be vetoing a bill that could potentially help millions of Americans,” DeGette said. “I think I’d like to look him in the eye and say that to him.”
Bush has repeatedly said he would veto HR 810, a bill co- sponsored by DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. It passed the House in May 2005, and the Senate plans to vote on it before the end of summer. Senate passage would send it directly to Bush.
“It is critical that we harness the power of the federal government to help patients find the treatments and cures that they desperately seek,” DeGette and Castle wrote in a letter to Bush.
The White House said Thursday that the president had not yet received the letter and, therefore, hadn’t had a chance to review it.
Bush’s policy statement on the bill says the legislation “would require federal taxpayer dollars to be used to encourage the ongoing destruction of nascent human life,” which “raises serious ethical problems, and many millions of Americans consider the practice immoral.”
DeGette said she would tell Bush “the pro-life argument for stem-cell research is to allow people to donate these embryos that would be thrown away anyway.”
DeGette’s bill allows federally funded research on embryos left over from in vitro fertilization that would otherwise be discarded and that are donated by clinics with permission from couples, without payment.
The bill would void Bush’s executive order of Aug. 9, 2001, limiting federal research funding to the 60 embryonic stem-cell lines in existence on that date.
Scientists believe the embryonic stem cells can be used to develop treatments for many deadly and debilitating diseases.
The cells divide unceasingly and can be manipulated to become almost any type of cell in the body.
The bill is opposed by social conservatives groups, including Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family.
