End Bush's stem cell club

The Boston Globe
July 18, 2006

FIVE YEARS ago this summer, President Bush hobbled research into the disease-curing potential of embryonic stem cells by placing strict limits on the cells that scientists using federal funds could experiment with. Private and state government support has made some research possible, but the 2001 restrictions have greatly hampered the kind of basic experimentation that the National Institutes of Health have traditionally paid for.

A bill before the Senate today would end the ban on federally funded scientists using stem cells from embryos created after Bush laid down his policy. The measure enjoys broad, bipartisan support and is expected to pass. To overcome a promised veto from Bush, Senate backers are hoping to muster a veto-proof 67 votes. Such a tally would offer hope to sufferers of diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal injuries, and other conditions that scientists believe might some day be treated by embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to develop into healthy replacement cells. A veto-proof Senate majority could also persuade more members of the House, where the measure passed with less than the two-thirds support needed to override a veto, to favor the change.

Although polls show embryonic stem cell research has the approval of about 70 percent of the public, it is controversial because extracting stem cells from tiny, days-old embryos results in their destruction, which Bush and others oppose as the taking of human life.(emphasis mine) The president's 2001 policy limited federal funding to stem cells extracted before then, to ensure that no others would be destroyed for research. Those cells have proven inadequate, however, causing members of Congress, including abortion opponents such as Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, to favor undoing the Bush restriction.

Under the bill, research with federal funds would be limited to embryos left over from fertility treatments. The couples who created the embryos would have to give permission for experimentation. It is noteworthy that, outside of the Catholic Church, few opponents of embryonic stem cell research also seek to ban in-vitro fertilization, which also results in the discarding and destruction of embryos. This practice is so widely accepted because it has allowed previously infertile couples to have children. Once stem cell research provides the medical breakthroughs that scientists believe are possible, opposition to it will also melt.

That day will come sooner if Congress lifts the Bush restriction on stem cells. Patients who could benefit from this research should not have to wait until there is a new president for the federal government to marshal its resources in this promising approach to treating disease.

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-Buck

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