Stem Cell Fight Not Over

Despite Second Bush Veto, Democrats Expected To Press Legislation On Stem Cell Research

(CBS/AP)  President Bush hasn't seen the last of legislation to allow federal funding for new embryonic stem cell research.

Supporters are answering his veto with an effort Thursday to add to an appropriations bill permission to use taxpayer dollars for new lines of embryonic stem cells.

Separately, Democratic congressional leaders are expected to bring back the bill Mr. Bush nixed and try to override his veto — or just give the issue more air time. Neither chamber has the two-thirds majority necessary to succeed.

The stem-cell controversy divides the presidential candidates as well, CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports, and it's clear that it will be an election issue.

"This will be an election issue in 2008 not just in the House, not just in the Senate, but in the presidential election," said one of the House's chief sponsors of the bill the president vetoed, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. "We ... intend to continue bringing this up until we have a pro-stem cell president and a pro-stem cell Congress."

It was familiar rhetoric after Mr. Bush's second veto of the legislation. But this time, he is facing new Democratic congressional leaders planning to resurrect the issue in the bills they author, the committees they control and on the House and Senate floors.

Vetoing the bill a second time Wednesday, Mr. Bush also sought to placate those who disagree with him by signing an executive order urging scientists toward what he termed "ethically responsible" research.

Mr. Bush announced no new federal dollars for stem cell research, which supporters say holds the promise of disease cures, and his order would not allow researchers to do anything they couldn't do under existing restrictions.

"If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," he said. "I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line."

He vetoed similar embryonic stem cell legislation last July.

Mr. Bush's executive order encourages scientists to work with the government to add other kinds of stem cell research to the list of projects eligible for federal funding — so long as it does not create, harm or destroy human embryos.

Democrats dismissed Mr. Bush's veto as a moral affront to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have diseases that might someday be treated or cured by research into the lines derived from pluripotent — or all-purpose — embryonic stem cells. Democrats said his executive order was a meaningless gesture meant to trick people into thinking he had advanced stem cell research.

Many Republicans also support the bill the president vetoed. At a separate news conference, DeGette's co-sponsor, Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., said Republican supporters will join in the effort to overturn the veto.

The pushback was expected to begin Thursday. The Senate Appropriations Committee was to vote on a must-pass bill for the Labor and Health and Human Services departments that includes permission to use federal funding for embryonic stem cell lines derived after Mr. Bush in 2001 banned taxpayer dollars from being used on new studies of that kind.

The provision, proposed by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, would allow taxpayer dollars to be spent on research on human embryonic stem cell lines derived prior to June 15, 2007 — moving the date of Mr. Bush's August 2001 ban on public funding for such research up by nearly six years.

Research on stem cell lines derived in the interim would be eligible for federal funding. The new provision also would add ethical standards to be used for selecting embryos to be studied using federal funds.

By the 2008 elections, Democrats predicted, Mr. Bush's veto of new public funding for embryonic stem cell research would be a top priority of voters in the congressional and presidential elections.

Public opinion polls show strong support for the research.

Republican presidential hopefuls are split on the scope of federal involvement in embryonic stem cell research. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have broken with Bush — and the GOP's social conservatives — in backing the expansion of federal funding for such research.

Rivals Mitt Romney and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas oppose the expansion.

Most of the Democratic candidates have urged Mr. Bush to expand the research.

Scientists were first able to conduct research with embryonic stem cells in 1998, according to the National Institutes of Health. There were no federal funds available for the work until Mr. Bush announced on Aug. 9, 2001, that his administration would spend tax money for research on lines of cells that already were in existence.

Currently, states and private organizations are permitted to fund embryonic stem cell research, but federal support is limited to cells that existed as of Aug. 9, 2001. The latest bill was aimed at lifting that restriction.

[randalds]

Better get to an asylum and take dallison with you, scumballs.
Posted by mudrose at 10:35 AM : Jun 22, 2007

You are beginning to show signs of Alzheimer's. One of the traits of alzheimer's patients is their blind rage. You have all the symptoms.

Try some Alavert! It's endorsed by Di*ck Cheney! (well ok, so it doesn't work on him, but he makes good money saying so)

[mudrose-2009]

Neocons and the Bushit / Darth Chickenshit administration are real "moral" when no personal price is paid by them and their cronies. Thus, we have lots of "young Republicans", Bushshytes, who support the war because they know they will personally never face a draft. They oppose abortion--until their lily white daughter gets raped. They oppose stem cell research--until they come down with Alzheimer's, like Ronnie Raygun.

Busht's primary attribute, along with stupidity, is stubbornness. So wishing that he comes down with Alzheimer's is merely hoping for an opinion-changing event to occur in his life.

Right on dallison!

Posted by gkc99

You are beginning to show signs of Alzheimer's. One of the traits of alzheimer's patients is their blind rage. You have all the symptoms. Better get to an asylum and take dallison with you, scumballs.

[gkc99]

oleander8 sez:
""Bush takes us another giant step backwards into darkness. I want to be there when he and his fat-butt wife both end up with some horrible disease whose cure he has prevented."
[Posted by dallison7] ""

"What is the point of your rude, mean comment?"

Neocons and the Bushit / Darth Chickenshit administration are real "moral" when no personal price is paid by them and their cronies. Thus, we have lots of "young Republicans", Bushshytes, who support the war because they know they will personally never face a draft. They oppose abortion--until their lily white daughter gets raped. They oppose stem cell research--until they come down with Alzheimer's, like Ronnie Raygun.

Busht's primary attribute, along with stupidity, is stubbornness. So wishing that he comes down with Alzheimer's is merely hoping for an opinion-changing event to occur in his life.

Right on dallison!

[oleander8]

"Bush takes us another giant step backwards into darkness. I want to be there when he and his fat-butt wife both end up with some horrible disease whose cure he has prevented."
[Posted by dallison7]

What is the point of your rude, mean comment?

[drinuk]

This is simply about support for the pharmaceuticals. Stem cell research will without doubt blow most of their poisons out of the water and they will not have one single Patent on it. For Bush to make it a religious issue is a Snow Job, almost a worse lie than WMD's. His nutty religious followers will be the first to request it when they start shaking with Parkinsons. Oh! the hypocracy of these crooks, it's almost beyond belief, His God is certainly not the peoples God, we want genuine cures not Big Pharma chemical comfort and dependency.

[dallison7]

Bush takes us another giant step backwards into darkness. I want to be there when he and his fat-butt wife both end up with some horrible disease whose cure he has prevented.

[canyoutellme-2009]

question to the sheep who call themselves republicans....

These embryos are discarded normally... So, question to you republipukes... do you prefer that these embryos are destroyed and discarded?

If that is your stance, then it is you who want to destroy life.

You do realize that lives will be SAVED if Stem Cell research continues on right?

Oh wait... there's the "there's no proven cures from stem cell research, let's abandon it all... it's hocus pocus"... need I remind you that ALL medicinal breakthroughs happen after YEARS AND YEARS of work and failed trial after failed trial. With enough time and learning, we humans create great things. Did you realize that the development of many vaccines which keep you ALIVE were actually FAILURES at first? Did you know that all kinds of anesthesia was deadly to all until we humans spent many many years researching it and figuring it out? Would you prefer to have just dropped it and then so all surgery would be without anesthesia? because "pain" is natural? LOL

[hhkeller]

Wonder how Bush will live with himself after he realizes he squandered a 2 term Presidency.

[realpatriot1]

NO!DO NOT ATTACH TO THE MILITARY SPENDING BILL!

The military spending bill isn't just about Iraq. It's about Afghanistan. It's about the Pacific Navy. It's about readiness for matters that we can't even forsee at this point.

Let's not even joke about that.

[tnichlsn]

attach it to the military spending bill...

[liberalvet]

This is another issue that will doom the Republicons to MINORITY status for the rest of the century.

GOOD riddance!
Posted by Terrapin78 at 02:30 PM : Jun 21, 2007

I can not wait until the day these Bible thumping right wing idiots are shoved back into the hole from which they crawled. They have no clue what is coming. Live it up you close minded freaks while you can.

[randalds]

This is nothing more then religious interference into what should be a purely scientific government decision. The science says that embryonic stem cell research presents us with opportunities to cure diseases and yet a small percentage of very vocal people (who happen to include the chimp in the White House) want this research to stop for purely religious reasons. the science says that this will benefit all Americans and people worldwide, but it's stopped because a tiny number of Americans stupidly confuse this research with abortion. A benefit is being denied to all citizens from the government that belongs to all citizens, for religious reasons. This is a prime case for the separation of church and state.

[donnie900]

I can't stand the sight of blood. It makes me throw up. Lately, I've been doing better because of all those horror movies out there. But nevertheless, I'd make a terrible doctor.

[darkswan-2009]

Taking a life to save another is not right says GW??

Well then I suppose you think the US should never go to war to protect itself either. After all your killing soldiers and innocent peoplein other countries to supposedly save American citizens right?

but I digress,

The moral compass points to the word of the Bible which explicitly states over and over

"...it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof:(Leviticus 14:11)

"the life...is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11)

and again, "the blood is the life" (Deuteronomy 12:23).

The essence of Christianity is Christ's blood shed for our eternal life. Blood and life are intimately and inextricably linked in the Bible.

No blood = no life, quite simple.

[mudrose-2009]

WHY DO WE HAVE TO USE TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO FUND THIS? AND WHY DO WE HAVE TO USE TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO FUND ABORTIONS ABROAD? IS ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT THIS CONGRESS IS TRYING TO SHOVE DOWN OUR THROATS? THE CULTURE OF DEATH IS ALIVE AND WELL AND FLOURISHING IN AMERICA.

[tucano2]

Idiot President Bush claims such left-over and unwanted embryo tissue is a human being and he prefers destruction of such embryo tissue via a dumpster and landfill along with the rest of the trash rather than use such tissue for research into possible cures for real human diseases. He actually said he would resist use of taxpayer dollars for purposes many if not all Americans were opposed to. So how does he explain his rationale for the Iraq War or the current Amnesty and Corporate Welfare bill in the Senate?
Americans are far more opposed to both the Iraq War and the Amnesty and Corporate Welfare proposals Mr. Bush supports than are against scientific research using discarded tissue to investigate possible cures for diseases that aflict each and every family in America. Mr. Bush you are not only a phoney-baloney hypocrite
you are anti-American and a pathological lier.

[donnie900]

They don't throw that stuff in the dump ya know. I think they incinerate it.

[realpatriot1]

What Clinton did was to continue the policy of Bush's father which had Sadaam contained so that he couldn't invade his neighbors or be invaded by his neighbors, for that matter.

Bush 41 made the decision to not go to Baghdad, so if anyone was being a coward about"resolving" Iraq it was him. But ,of course, as we can clearly see now, the jingoistic approach of yahoos like you is idiotic and the policy followed by the previous 2 Presidents was the intelligent one

As usual, you spout *** not backed up by the facts. Iraq allowed the inspectors in, told them they didn't have anything, and before the inspectors could finish the search, the lter-in-chief decided to play with his toy soldiers.

As far as courage is concerned, Clinton attacked Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bush wet his pants at Tora Bora.

Did you see the report that the F.B.I. was forced by the freedom of information act to release yesterday? Either Bin Laden or the Saudi Royal Family(one and the same) chartered the plane that took the Bin Ladens out of the country after 9/11

Really Brave.

[ianlou]

Headline: Stem Cell Fight Not Over

News Flash: Since Bush and most of his cronies in Congress will be gone in 2009, Nothing Is Over!

[rochest]

just follow the money by Bush vetoing the public financing of embryonic stem cell research he has made sure that this research stays private and that any cures will be sold to the public at a very high price so that once again with our health-care system only the wealthiest can afford them initially and then maybe five or 10 years down the road as corporate profits sag they will be offered to the masses at a lower cost.

Rather if you have public financing any treatments or cures become part of the public domain of knowledge and can be used for the good of mankind/ womankind. Also if it's in the public domain it can be regulated if its profit/ private driven then the needs of the customer are paramount like cloning and designer babies.