House approves stem cell research
Measure garners veto-proof margin
The state House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill yesterday that promotes embryonic stem cell research in the Bay State, rejecting by a veto-proof margin Governor Mitt Romney's attempt to prohibit a research technique that involves the cloning of human cells.
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The House action followed the Senate's approval of a slightly different stem cell bill on Wednesday, meaning the two versions must be reconciled before the legislation goes to Romney. Both versions endorse the creation of human embryos for stem cell research, so Romney will probably reject the bill that emerges.
Lawmakers said the two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate that passed the legislation, and refused to strip what some call therapeutic cloning from the bill, make it likely the Legislature will override a Romney veto. The tally on final passage was 117-37 in the House last night and 35-2 in the Senate Wednesday.
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''The House of Representatives voted significantly in favor of helping children and people of all ages who suffer from debilitating diseases and illnesses," said House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi. ''I think this is a giant step for medical research."
Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom called the House's endorsement of the research technique involving cloning of human cells disappointing.
''We are now in uncharted ethical territory. The cloning of human embryos has never been done before in the United States, and the governor has very legitimate concerns that we not create life for the sole purpose of experimenting on it," Fehrnstrom said. ''The governor will not sign into law a bill that permits the cloning of human embryos for research."
Yesterday's vote in the House followed a passionate, seven-hour debate during which numerous lawmakers invoked friends and relatives with diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS who could be helped by cures that might be found through stem cell research. DiMasi, in the first major vote since he became speaker last fall, called wavering lawmakers to persuade them to back the stem cell bill with the provision endorsing cloning of human embryonic cells, legislators said.
Scientists in Massachusetts are already doing embryonic stem cell research. But the bill would remove the current requirement that the researchers get approval from the local district attorney to work with embryos, and would give the state Department of Public Health some regulatory control over their research. Supporters hope it will keep embryonic stem cell research, and jobs, in the Bay State.
The Senate version of the bill would give the Department of Public Health licensing authority over researchers doing human embryonic stem cell research, but the House version includes a stronger role for the agency, according to DiMasi. Fehrnstrom said that if the bill that emerges from a conference committee appointed by the two chambers doesn't give the department significant authority, some House members might be persuaded to move into the governor's camp.
If the bill becomes law, Massachusetts would follow California and New Jersey as the only states to explicitly endorse embryonic stem cell research and somatic cell nuclear transfer. California and New Jersey have promised to spend money on embryonic stem-cell research, and Massachusetts lawmakers may do the same to keep pace, said Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who has been driving the issue on Beacon Hill.
Romney backs stem cell research using embryos left over from in vitro fertilization, but opposes the creation of human embryos for research, which he argues would create human life for the sole purpose of destroying it. The bill would ban reproductive human cloning, or the creation of a baby, but allow scientists to produce embryos for research.
Much of yesterday's debate revolved around the validity and morality of Romney's position, which was embodied by an amendment offered by House minority leader Bradley H. Jones Jr.that would have eliminated the bill's endorsement of therapeutic cloning.
Representative Paul J.P. Loscocco, a Holliston Republican who backed Romney's stance, said: ''Science only moves forward. It's up to us as legislators to decide what is and is not acceptable.
''Our authorization will begin a whole new chapter of history, where the large-scale commercial creation of human life will commence," Loscocco said.
But supporters of stem cell research that involves cloned human embryos 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. Representative Daniel E. Bosley, the North Adams Democrat who shepherded the bill, also noted that it bars research on embryos that are older than 14 days. After that point, cells begin to differentiate and take on the characteristics of human organs.
''In the first 14 days you are dealing with a series of cells," Bosley said. ''I feel very comfortable that in the first 14 days we are not creating life or destroying life."
Romney has tried to tap into the public's uneasiness about cloning by running radio ads denouncing the measure in the Legislature as ''a radical cloning bill." Recent polls indicate strong support for embryonic stem cell research, but deep doubts about using human cells cloned in a laboratory. All 21 Republicans, joined by 24 Democrats, ended up backing the governor's position in a key vote before final passage.
The protesters who have flocked to the State House for debates on other social issues, most notably gay marriage, were missing yesterday. But some political observers have speculated that Romney was aiming for an audience beyond the state's borders when he adopted his stance earlier this year: If he runs for president in 2008, he will have to persuade social conservatives that he shares their values despite his Massachusetts address.
The process of somatic cell nuclear transfer involves taking the nucleus of a cell such as skin, heart, or nerve cell and implanting it in a human egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed. The egg cell is then stimulated to grow in a laboratory dish for several days until it becomes a nearly featureless ball of about 200 cells known as a blastocyst. Researchers then develop a new batch of embryonic stem cells from this blastocyst.
Only one team of scientists, in South Korea, has cloned a human cell for stem cell research. Some researchers at Harvard and elsewhere believe that creating stem cells through cloning will make it much easier to study specific diseases and perhaps find cures for individual patients by using a person's own genetic material.
The Catholic Church and antiabortion groups believe that an embryo is a human being, whether it is left over from in vitro fertilization or produced by cloning in a laboratory by stem cell researchers. They tout adult stem cells as a more promising, and ethical, avenue of research. But yesterday's vote illustrated that few lawmakers share that view.
''No civilized society should ever, ever, destroy some human beings for the benefit of others, no matter how noble the cause," said Maria Parker, interim executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the church's public policy arm.
Raphael Lewis of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Janette Neuwahl contributed to this report. Scott Greenberger can be reached at greenberger@globe.com.
