Stem cell measure set for Senate OK, veto from Bush
WASHINGTON -- The Senate is poised today to approve a long-stalled bill designed to expand embryonic stem cell research, setting up a presidential veto -- and adding to an already full plate of issues on which Republicans are divided on the eve of crucial midterm congressional elections.
President Bush is ready to issue the first veto of his presidency on the stem cell bill, a promise his administration reiterated yesterday. The move will please social conservatives, who contend that experimenting on fertilized human eggs to cure diseases amounts to ending human lives.
Yet Bush's veto of a measure that appears to enjoy strong public support will be a deep disappointment to GOP moderates, including some who are facing tight reelection campaigns in a year that Democrats have high hopes for taking control of Congress.
``It blows me away," said Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who is in a reelection dogfight with Democratic challenger Diane Farrell. ``What a horrible circumstance: The president is going to make his first veto something that will stand in the path of scientific progress."
The timing is unfortunate for the GOP, already reeling from internal divisions on a range of high-profile issues. With less than four months until Election Day, as Bush's popularity continues to languish, Republicans remain at odds over immigration reform, tax cuts, the minimum wage, and how to handle trials for suspects captured in the war on terrorism.
Mindful of their circumstances, Republican leaders in the House and Senate have structured the stem cell debate to minimize the political fallout. The Senate will also pass two stem cell measures today that Bush is prepared to sign -- bills that supporters of embryonic stem cell research say are largely symbolic.
House leaders want to attempt a veto override by the end of the week -- an attempt that both sides say is almost certain to fall short of the necessary two-thirds majority vote -- so the GOP can move beyond the issue as quickly as possible. The House is also trying this week to deliver on some conservative favorites, including a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and a bill that would protect the Pledge of Allegiance from court challenges.
Some social conservatives insist that Bush's veto of expanding embryonic stem cell research is good for the party, since it allows Republicans to demonstrate their commitment to protecting human lives.
``It's a gut-check," said Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who is a leading opponent of the stem cell bill. ``This is about the nature of the youngest of human beings. Is it a person or a piece of property? This is where the core of the debate is."
Yet many other Republicans say the issue has shifted since the president issued his August 2001 executive order that banned federal funds from supporting experiments on any newly created embryonic stem cell lines.
Celebrities including Michael J. Fox and the late Christopher Reeve have heightened public focus on the issue. Supporters of expanded research count prominent conservative voices in their corner, including former first lady Nancy Reagan -- who is personally lobbying senators on the bill -- as well as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and a Harvard-trained surgeon, and Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah.
As Senate debate on the measure began, Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said ``there is absolutely no sensible reason" for members of his party to stand in the path of embryonic stem cell research. Specter, who battled Hodgkin's disease last year, likened the opposition to the persecution Galileo endured for suggesting that planets revolve around the sun.
``A century from now, people will look back on what we are doing today in wonderment," said Specter.
Specter and other Republicans expressed hope that Bush would reconsider his veto, but the president put any lingering doubts to rest yesterday. His administration issued a formal statement yesterday calling the bill ``seriously flawed."
The bill ``would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the president's policy that funds research without promoting such ongoing destruction," the statement said.
The bill, passed by the House in the spring of 2005, would authorize federal funding for research on surplus embryos stored at in vitro fertilization clinics, with the consent of donors. Advocates say that some 400,000 embryos that are currently frozen at clinics will eventually be discarded unless experimentation is authorized.
Republican leaders hope the other two stem cell bills will give the president and his allies political cover for the veto. One would ban the creation of fetuses for research purposes; the other would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to explore ways of producing embryonic stem cell lines without killing embryos. Such research is already being funded by the federal government.
Representative Michael Castle, a Delaware Republican and chief sponsor of the embryonic stem cell bill, blasted the packaging of the measures as ``the most transparent political strategy I've ever seen." He predicted that it will backfire on conservatives who argue that they support embryonic stem cell research even as they vote to block such research.
``People are going to say, `I'm sorry but I have family members who have diabetes or Alzheimer's,' " Castle said. ``The president can say that he's supporting research, but the bottom line is this is going to be a slowdown [in the research], and that's not acceptable." 