Washington – The House passed legislation to lift limits on embryonic stem-cell research Thursday, setting up a confrontation with President Bush, who promised to veto the bill a second time.
House members voted 253-174 on a bill from Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., to ease restrictions on federal money for embryonic stem-cell research, which supporters say could lead to a host of medical breakthroughs.
“It was a great victory today,” DeGette said. “We’ve got tremendous momentum on our side.”
Support for the Denver Democrat’s bill grew by 15 votes from when it passed the House in 2005. November’s election sent more Democrats and supporters of the research to the chamber.
But the number in favor still fell 37 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
The Senate passed the bill last year, but Bush vetoed it and the House failed to override that veto, so supporters are trying again. The bill now goes to the Senate for action.
Opponents lamented Thursday’s House passage but said they trusted Bush would again keep it from becoming law.
“It is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro- life Americans, who believe that human life is sacred, and use it to fund the destruction of human embryos for research,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., who voted against the bill.
DeGette and others in the bipartisan House coalition that pushed the bill to passage twice said they have “no illusions” they can overcome a veto.
Instead, they are looking at other options to make the bill law, including attaching it as an amendment to legislation Bush would find hard to veto, such as measures to continue government funding or to pay for the Iraq war.
“This policy will become the law of the land,” said Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. “Our job here is to get the inevitable to happen as early as possible.”
The legislation passed Thursday allows federal funding of stem-cell research using donated embryos created for in-vitro fertilization and scheduled to be discarded as medical waste.
DeGette has pushed the bill since Bush’s August 2001 executive order allowing government funding of research only if it involves lines of embryonic stem cells in existence at the time of the order.
DeGette last fall campaigned for candidates who supported the legislation. Of the 15 additional votes for the bill this year, 14 were new House members. The 15th was a lawmaker who changed his vote from 2005: Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich.
Although November’s election added Democrats to the House, many of them replaced Republicans who previously supported the bill, making the new vote a wash in many cases.
In a three-hour House debate on the legislation, lawmakers cited Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, Paul the Apostle, Galileo, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the country’s founding fathers in their arguments for removing Bush’s restrictions.
Many lawmakers talked about constituents and family members afflicted with diseases that scientists believe might be treated with stem-cell therapies.
Opponents argued that embryonic stem-cell research has failed to produce any treatments or cures, and that society must protect its weakest members. They noted that the research causes the destruction of human embryos.
Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., an obstetrician-gynecologist, held up a picture of a mother with two children who were adopted when they were frozen embryos. Gingrey asked who would be willing to support not allowing the children to exist.
Democrats in the House chamber cheered after passage, and DeGette smiled and applauded, then hugged and shook hands with several colleagues.
The Senate is expected to vote on and likely pass the bill in February or March. Lawmakers then plan to use a parliamentary maneuver to send the Senate version of the bill to Bush.
That would mean any override vote would happen first in the Senate. Backers in the Senate believe they would have the 67 votes needed to override in that chamber.
Backers were also pointing to 2009, saying that the odds are the next president will support embryonic stem-cell research. Both Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered undeclared front-runners in the 2008 presidential race, support the research, Kirk said.
Rep. Diana DeGette's stem-cell legislation
Arguments for: Many scientists say embryonic stem-cell research could lead to treatments for a variety of diseases and injuries afflicting millions, such as Type 1 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spinal-cord damage. In theory, stem cells could be used to form organs, brain tissue or muscle to repair damage to the body.
Surveys indicate most Americans support the research.
Arguments against: Opponents object to embryonic stem-cell research because it destroys human embryos. Many see research on “adult,” or somatic, stem cells – found in mature tissues, such as bone marrow – as a promising alternative, although some scientists regard these cells as less potentially versatile than embryonic stem cells. Some also point to promising recent research into stem cells from amniotic fluid as a possible alternative.
Highlights of the bill: In 2001, President Bush restricted federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to cell lines then in existence, but the National Institutes of Health says few, if any, of those cells are still usable. The DeGette bill would allow funding for newer stem-cell lines from donated embryos from fertility clinics.
Sources: Denver Post reporting,
National Institutes of Health, wire services
