Romney finds middle ground on stem

In staking out a position against human cloning but for embryonic stem cell research, Governor Mitt Romney has carefully placed himself in the middle of Republican thought between social conservatives who oppose any cloning and those who want to loosen restrictions.

Romney lost in Massachusetts last week, when the House and Senate cast lopsided votes endorsing the cloning of embryos for research. The question now is whether his stand will bear political fruit for him beyond the state's borders if he runs for president in 2008.

Romney's opposition to cloning may appeal to social conservatives who have great influence in GOP primaries. Yet his view is not held by some prominent antiabortion Republicans, such as US Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, who would allow the use of cloned human embryos for stem cell research, believing that an embryo created without fertilization is not a human life.

''As for the majority of elected Republicans in the US House and Senate, Romney falls right in the middle. He truly falls right in the center of this debate," said Sarah Chamberlain, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a centrist GOP coalition that includes Romney as a member.

Romney's position, which he disclosed to The New York Times in February, has won him high praise from several prominent conservative pundits. He made sure to discuss it during recent speeches in states with key GOP primaries, including an address in South Carolina in February that was televised on C-Span.

But his position could also anger true believers on both sides. Among many religious conservatives, Romney's credentials are suspect because when he ran for governor he pledged not to tamper with the Bay State's abortion rights laws, even though he personally opposes abortion. On stem cells, he doesn't go far enough for some leading antiabortion groups, because he would allow scientists to harvest stem cells from embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. Leading antiabortion groups oppose all embryonic stem cell research.

''From my perspective, an embryo is an embryo. Granted, we would like to see them not creating embryos for research, but we also don't think you should be destroying these frozen embryos," said David A. Prentice, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council who believes a human embryo is a human life that must be protected.

''Some people might say it's the lesser of two evils, but I think a lot of people would say half a loaf is not better than none. A poor decision is still a poor decision," Prentice said of Romney's position.

The issue of embryonic stem cell research entered the national consciousness in 2001, when President Bush announced that he would bar the use of federal money to create any new batches of human embryonic stem cells. Bush restricted federally funded research to the use of stem cell lines in existence before August 2001. Scientists say stem cells derived from human embryos might someday cure diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, but some object to the research on ethical grounds because the embryos are destroyed in the process.

Only one team of scientists, in South Korea, has been able to clone a human cell for stem cell research. But some researchers, including teams at Harvard University and Children's Hospital in Boston, want to create stem cells through embryonic cloning. Many researchers believe it will make it much easier to study specific diseases and, perhaps, find cures for individual patients by using a person's genetic material.

Romney objects to the procedure, known as therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer, because he believes it amounts to creating a human life just to destroy it. But supporters of therapeutic cloning argue that because the egg cell that is used is never fertilized and will not be implanted in a uterus, scientists are not creating a human life.

Hoping to bolster his position, Romney has cited a United Nations vote last month that condemned therapeutic cloning. A Boston Globe poll last month found that 46 percent of those surveyed opposed stem cell research using human embryos cloned in a laboratory, though a large majority supported stem cell research generally.

Momentum has been building in favor of relaxing the limits set by Bush, in part because many of the existing stem lines are contaminated. Last year, 206 members of the US House and 58 US Senators -- including 31 Republicans and many abortion opponents -- signed letters asking the president to revisit the issue. And last week, House leaders agreed to allow a floor vote on a bill that would allow federal funding of research on surplus embryos from fertility clinics.

That vote is expected in the next two or three months. The bill is authored by US Representative Michael N. Castle, a Delaware Republican. It would also bar the use of federal money for research on cloned embryos.

''Because of President Bush's restrictive stem cell policy, scientists face two choices: Either compete for the very limited private funding that does not restrict access to stem cell lines, or accept federal support and use only the 22 contaminated lines created before Aug. 9, 2001," Castle said in a statement in February he made with US Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado. ''The Bush policy is creating a Wild West-era of science."

Supporters of looser restrictions often invoke Nancy Reagan, President Reagan's widow, who backs embryonic stem cell research. But from the other end of the spectrum, a pending measure sponsored by US Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, explicitly bans ''all forms of human cloning."

''Human life should be cherished and human dignity should be protected," Brownback said in a statement. ''We should not create human life just to destroy it."

Romney said Friday that he would support the Brownback bill. Though he lost in the Legislature, Romney predicts the Bay State debate will focus attention on cloning.

''I think there will be a view that Massachusetts, like California, is crossing into territory that our nation has never gone into before," the governor said, expressing concern about cloning and California's vote last fall for $3 billion to support stem cell research. ''That's something which I think will lead to the expression of concern, and perhaps a careful look at federal legislation to define what the boundaries of ethics and science might be."

Some Republicans, even antiabortion Republicans, hold a different view. In Missouri, which is embroiled in a debate over embryonic stem cell research, Republican Governor Matt Blunt, who is against abortions, supports therapeutic cloning. Blunt argues that without fertilization, there is no life. Hatch agrees.

''I am proud to hold a right-to-life philosophy," Hatch said two years ago when he proposed a bill allowing somatic cell nuclear transfer. ''I believe that human life begins in the womb, not in a petri dish."

Former US senator and UN ambassador John Danforth, another abortion opponent, expressed similar views in an op-ed published in The New York Times last week.

''It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases," Danforth wrote. ''I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law."

From a political standpoint, an important question regarding Romney and his stem cell position is: How does it play in the GOP primaries? Because the science is so complex, it would take time for people to understand the subtlety of his position.

Kristen Scuderi, spokeswoman for the Iowa Republican Party, said embryonic stem cell research ''is definitely a charged issue, because it's a life issue." But Scuderi said Iowans would be hard-pressed to distinguish between the positions of Bush, Romney, and Hatch.

''If you went to the average Iowan on the street and asked them about it, I don't think they'd know the difference," she said.

Scott Greenberger can be reached at greenberger@globe.com.