President Bush will get his next crack at Diana DeGette’s stem-cell bill around February or March. That’s how long Denver’s Democratic congresswoman thinks it will take her legislation to come to a vote in the Senate.
The outcome of the Senate vote on expanding federal funding for embryonic stem- cell research is no more in doubt than last week’s vote in the House of Representatives. It’s merely a matter of increasing the margin of victory.
Most of all, however, it is about George W. Bush’s legacy as an anti-science stooge.
Last year, Bush used the first veto of his administration to stop an embryonic stem-cell research bill sponsored by DeGette and Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware. That bill passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Now, the White House has signaled that Bush will veto an identical bill passed Thursday in the Democratic-controlled House and headed for the Democratic-controlled Senate.
“In light of the scientific progress we’ll be seeing in the coming years,” DeGette predicted, a second veto “is going to make him look like a Luddite.
“If he vetoes it again after refusing to even sit down and have a conversation with the sponsors, that makes him look inflexible and stubborn to the detriment of Americans’ health.”
Surveys show the vast majority of Americans want the government to pay for research on embryonic stem cells that would otherwise be thrown away by fertility clinics. That’s because the vast majority of Americans understand that this is not an act of immorality or – as the president’s spokesman once claimed – an act of murder.
Bush continues to cater to a small minority of religious extremists who claim that it is ethically preferable to let discarded frozen embryos be dumped than to use them for scientific research that might save or improve lives.
DeGette, the senior member of Colorado’s House delegation, hopes that’s not how this president wants to be remembered.
DeGette picked up 15 more “yes” votes in this year’s embryonic stem-cell vote. She went from 238 to 253 in the 435-member House. She remains far short of the 290 votes needed to nix a presidential veto.
Still, science remains overwhelmingly on her side. Four days before the stem-cell vote, researchers from Wake Forest University and Harvard published promising new research on stem cells taken from amniotic fluid.
Opponents of embryonic stem-cell research immediately tried to claim the advances as an alternative. So DeGette called the researchers and asked a simple question:
Do you consider this a substitute for embryonic stem- cell research?
The answer, of course, was no. DeGette asked the scientists to write a letter to that effect, which they gladly did.
That’s because embryonic stem cells can become any type of cell in the human body. They offer hope of curing a variety of diseases and treating spinal cord injuries. This explains why the issue helped determine the outcomes of dozens of midterm congressional races.
In a telephonic news conference supporting Ed Perlmutter in Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, actor and Parkinson’s disease victim Michael J. Fox said it best: He isn’t for one kind of scientific research; he is for all kinds.
DeGette calls stem-cell research on discarded embryos “a positive wedge issue.” She said a survey of unaffiliated voters in August showed that in the top 50 House swing districts, support for stem-cell research swung the choice of unaffiliated voters more than any other issue.
“They may not mention stem-cell research first,” she said, “but it’s a wedge issue that causes (unaffiliated voters) to think the anti-research candidate is extreme and on the fringe.”
They are.
This is why DeGette may attach her stem-cell bill as an amendment to some must- pass legislation if Bush vetoes it again.
“In this term,” the congresswoman said, “I am going to do whatever it takes to see that embryonic stem-cell research is expanded in this country, whether that’s a stand-alone bill or whether it takes language in another bill. However I can do it, I am committed to expansion of the research.”
That’s Plan A.
Plan B is waiting for the next president, then getting a research funding bill approved and signed into law.
“The next president – be it a Democrat or a Republican – will be pro-stem-cell research,” DeGette promised.
She is not being cocky. She’s betting that anyone else elected in the 21st century will be smart enough to grasp what George Bush apparently can’t.
Discarded embryos help humanity a whole lot more in laboratories than trash cans.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
