The Senate recently approved the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 on a vote of 63-to-34. Seventeen Republicans joined majority Democrats in approving the bill, which would expand federal funding for controversial embryonic stem cell research, in which the process of extracting the stem cells results in the destruction of the embryo.
The legislation would lift restrictions that President Bush imposed on embryonic stem cell research in August, 2001, which placed limits on the stem cell lines that were in existence at the time.
Congress approved a similar measure last year, which resulted in the first veto issued by the President.
The latest Senate vote fell four short of the two-thirds majority needed to override another veto by the President. Likewise, the Democratic-led House in January approved a similar bill on a vote of 253-to-174. But it too, fell far short of the votes needed for a veto override.
Following the Senate vote, the President was quick to renew his pledge to reject the legislation. "This bill crosses a moral line that I and many others find troubling. If it advances all the way through Congress to my desk, I will veto it," the President stated.
The Senate subsequently approved an alternate measure, Hope Offered Through Principled and Ethical Stem Cell Research Act, or the HOPE Act, on a vote of 70-to-28. It encourages research on embryos that have naturally lost the ability to develop into fetuses. That measure enjoys the President's backing.
"Exciting and significant scientific advances have been reported over the past few years on uses of stem cells that do not involve the destruction of embryos. These advances using adult and other forms of stem cells are exciting. Some have even produced effective therapies and treatments on all kinds of diseases – all without the destruction of human life."
The HOPE Act builds on this ethically appropriate research by encouraging further development of these alternative techniques for producing stem cells without embryo creation or destruction. I strongly support this bill, and I encourage the Congress to pass it and send it to me for my signature, so stem cell science can progress, without ethical and cultural conflict," the President added.
Just days after the Senate voted, the President reiterated his opposition to an expansion of embryonic stem cell research during the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
"In our day, there is a temptation to manipulate life in ways that do not respect the humanity of the person. When that happens, the most vulnerable among us can be valued for their utility to others instead of their own inherent worth."
Many pro-family and religious groups back the President's position on both measures, including National Right to Life Committee.
NRLC Legislative Director, Douglas Johnson, said, "The congressional Democratic leadership is again engaged in political demagoguery, making claims for embryonic stem cell research that go far beyond any evidence. Not a single human patient has yet been helped by stem cells obtained by killing human embryos. Meanwhile, many thousands of human patients have been helped with other types of stem cells, obtained in non-controversial ways that do not require harming human embryos."
Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, noted, "With enactment of S.5, millions of taxpayers would be forced to promote attacks on innocent human life in the name of scientific progress. Americans have not been required to assist in such direct exploitation of vulnerable human life in the past. Because the President has promised to veto this bill, and opposition to it in Congress is sufficient to uphold his veto in both the House and Senate, we expect that this terrible burden will not be placed on the American people now.
Many members of Congress remain dazzled by irresponsibly hyped promises of ‘miracle cures' from the destruction of human embryos, although experts in the field increasingly admit that treatments from this avenue may be decades away. This debate continues to divert attention and resources away from the demonstrated therapeutic promise of morally sound research using adult and cord blood stem cells. Not only embryonic human beings, but suffering patients and their families are victims of the Senate's fixation on destructive research," Doerflinger said.
Concerned Women for America President, Wendy Wright, criticized approval of S.5.
"The debate on this bill relied on massive misinformation and unconscionable manipulation of patients. The lack of votes to override President Bush's promised veto may reflect the fact that scientists have recently admitted that embryonic stem cell research does not hold the promise that has been claimed, and in the wake of breaking news of success with adult stem cells, making embryonic research both unethical and unnecessary," Wright said.
The Christian Medical Association, the nation's largest faith-based association of physicians, said, S.5 is "scientifically impractical and assaults human dignity."
CMA Chief Executive Officer, Dr. David Stephens, said, "By exploiting the relatively few stored human embryos currently considered eligible for research, this bill would result in just a tiny fraction of the stem cell lines from embryos that researchers demand. It's clear that the ultimate utility of the bill is to further erode respect and protections for human embryos and thus pave the way for creating embryos purely for experiments.
Creating human embryos and harvesting their stem cells, ostensibly for disease treatments, is a highly speculative, impractical and unethical proposition. Human cloning and egg donation would exploit poor and vulnerable women and subject them to potential harm through the super ovulation and egg harvesting process. So while reducing human embryos to a commodity now, embryonic stem cell research would eventually exploit women as a commodity, as well.
Besides the moral wrongs of killing embryos and exploiting women, this bill would also divert precious healthcare funds away from ethical and effective research using stem cells found in the patient's own body, and also in cord blood, amniotic fluid and placenta. Such non-embryonic stem cell research does not harm a human embryo and is already producing real therapies for real patients in over 70 different diseases and injuries," Stevens said.
Among the groups that lobbied for passage of S. 5 was the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research. CAMR President, Sean Tipton, said, "There are 100 million Americans suffering from debilitating diseases and disorders for which embryonic stem cell research provides great hope. The ethical guidelines in S.5 are tighter than those under the President's policy, specifically when it comes to requiring the individuals seeking fertility treatment to provide written informed consent when donating their surplus embryos.
Embryonic stem cell research hasn't yet led to any human therapies because the field is in its infancy, and because President Bush's restrictions have forced federally funded investigators to work with one arm tied behind their back. Scientists didn't succeed in deriving human embryonic stem cells until 1998, and the first federal grants in this area weren't awarded until 2002. It's no surprise that more diseases are currently being treated with adult stem cells; adult stem cell research has had a 30-year head start," Tipton said.
National Organization for Women President, Kim Gandy, said, embryonic stem cell research is a "woman's issue through and through."
As for S.5, Gandy said, "Women are the majority of this country's caregivers, and when family members experience tragic accidents, become ill or suffer chronic conditions, it often falls to women to care for them. The research supported by this bill could someday help alleviate the suffering, as well as the mental and financial stress associated with many chronic and fatal diseases."
Gandy also expressed opposition to the HOPE Act. "This legislation places severe restrictions on the ability to conduct research on what may prove to be the most promising stem cells. Clearly, this is another attempt to insert political control over science and medicine," Gandy added.
Some pro-life and religious leaders also have expressed reservations with the HOPE Act, including Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President, Dr. Richard Land, and Dr. Ben Mitchell, a special consultant for the commission and associate professor of Bioethics and Contemporary Culture at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.
"While we affirm the ethical principles that inform S.30, we can neither endorse nor oppose it in its current form. We applaud the bill sponsor's efforts to chart a path toward therapies and cures while trying to protect nascent human embryonic life from destructive research. On the face of it, the bill's ‘natural death' requirement seems to navigate this difficult territory. We are deeply concerned, however, that given our current understanding of the development of the early human embryo, it is impossible to determine accurately when the death of the embryo actually occurs.
As we understand the state of the science, it is impossible to know precisely which living cells of an early embryo are necessary to sustain embryonic life. We are concerned, therefore, that the bill, in its current form, would tacitly authorize the destruction of so-called ‘low grade' but viable embryos, not just deceased embryos," Land and Mitchell stated.
Also, American Life League President, Judie Brown, said, the HOPE Act contains its own set of "moral dilemmas." "This arbitrary decision to deem certain embryonic children as ‘naturally dead' even though they may be alive and growing, is extremely dangerous. While the intention of the bill may have been noble, the HOPE Act affords scientists the opportunity to finesse their way around the facts, resulting in a dead child.
There are viable and effective alternatives to human embryonic stem cell research that must be expanded -- notably, research involving adult stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells. We simply cannot allow the inhumane sacrifice of human beings in the name of science to continue," Brown said.
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