Bush Actually Vetoed Something, But It Was Somthing Good
President Bush has decided to veto a bill which would expand federal stem cell research (story: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2210063 ).
A reminder for everyone on this topic, stem cells are cells which are capable of becomming any number of more specialized cells. Medical research, in hopes of curing a number of diseases, focused on stem cells produced from embryos, and required the distruction of that embryo to produce the nessisary stem cels.
As the policy was before 9/11, Bush allowed any stem cells that was already produced could be researched, but banned creation of any more. At the time, Bush said that there was upwards of 64 lines of these stem cells available for research. However, the book All the President's Spin outlined that many of these lines were actually in development, and many wouldn't actually be viable. As of 2004 (the time of the book's publication), there was only 19 lines actually available for research (the major section about spin on stem cells in the book are on pages 95-100).
Then came this past week. Both the Senate and the House passed a bill which would make available any embryos from discarded embryos from invetro fertilization. While there weren't enough votes in the Senate to overturn a presidential veto, it marks the first time where Bush only listened to the hardcore Republicans. Which is strange, because it usually is those people to run the House, and they passed the bill.
This is a quote from the ABCNews article above:
""The unfortunate part is, if the president does veto the bill, then it sets us back a year or so until we can finally pass a bill that will have the requisite supermajority to be able to become law," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "And that sets back embryonic stem cell research another year or so.""
This from a Republican. It also doesn't help that Nancy Reagan, widow of former President Ronald Reagan, supports stem cell research.
The president here has done medical science a great wrong. As I see it, using discarded embryos, or embryos that won't survive any way, should be the way to get this research done. Even if you are pro-life on this debate, wouldn't it be best to have these doomed embryos have some meaning?
Alas, partisan politics trump everything else for this president.
A reminder for everyone on this topic, stem cells are cells which are capable of becomming any number of more specialized cells. Medical research, in hopes of curing a number of diseases, focused on stem cells produced from embryos, and required the distruction of that embryo to produce the nessisary stem cels.
As the policy was before 9/11, Bush allowed any stem cells that was already produced could be researched, but banned creation of any more. At the time, Bush said that there was upwards of 64 lines of these stem cells available for research. However, the book All the President's Spin outlined that many of these lines were actually in development, and many wouldn't actually be viable. As of 2004 (the time of the book's publication), there was only 19 lines actually available for research (the major section about spin on stem cells in the book are on pages 95-100).
Then came this past week. Both the Senate and the House passed a bill which would make available any embryos from discarded embryos from invetro fertilization. While there weren't enough votes in the Senate to overturn a presidential veto, it marks the first time where Bush only listened to the hardcore Republicans. Which is strange, because it usually is those people to run the House, and they passed the bill.
This is a quote from the ABCNews article above:
""The unfortunate part is, if the president does veto the bill, then it sets us back a year or so until we can finally pass a bill that will have the requisite supermajority to be able to become law," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "And that sets back embryonic stem cell research another year or so.""
This from a Republican. It also doesn't help that Nancy Reagan, widow of former President Ronald Reagan, supports stem cell research.
The president here has done medical science a great wrong. As I see it, using discarded embryos, or embryos that won't survive any way, should be the way to get this research done. Even if you are pro-life on this debate, wouldn't it be best to have these doomed embryos have some meaning?
Alas, partisan politics trump everything else for this president.
posted by SeanM at 7:19 PM
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