With first veto of presidency, Bush blocks bill that would destroy embryos for stem cells
- Jul 19, 2006
WASHINGTON (BP)—President Bush used his veto power for the first time July 19, rejecting a bill that would have funded stem cell research that destroys embryos.
The president vetoed, as promised, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would have weakened his policy barring federal grants for experiments that result in the destruction of human embryos. Bush’s rule allows funds for research only on embryonic stem cell lines already in existence when his policy was announced in 2001.
Congress has virtually no chance of overriding Bush’s veto, which came halfway through his sixth year in the White House. In action July 18, the Senate approved the measure 63-37, four votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for an override. Last year, the House of Representatives passed the bill, H.R. 810, with a 238-194 vote, about 50 votes short of a two-thirds majority.
In addition to vetoing H.R. 810, Bush signed into law the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act, S. 3504, which bars the acceptance of tissue from an embryo implanted or developed in a woman or animal for research purposes.
The president announced his veto of the embryonic stem cell funding bill by saying it crossed a “moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect.”
“If this bill would have become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos. And I’m not going to allow it,” Bush said.
“I made it clear to the Congress that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line,” he said in a 15-minute speech. “Crossing the line would needlessly encourage a conflict between science and ethics that can only do damage to both and to our nation as a whole. If we’re to find the right ways to advance ethical medical research, we must also be willing, when necessary, to reject the wrong ways.”
Bush announced his actions in the White House’s East Room to an audience that included 18 families with “snowflake” children they adopted as embryos in storage at fertility clinics, four families who donated embryos to other families and four people who have been treated with non-embryonic stem cells, which do not harm donors.
“Each of these children began his or her life as a frozen embryo that was created for in vitro fertilization but remained unused after the fertility treatments were complete,” the president said of the children who surrounded him. “These boys and girls are not spare parts. They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research. They remind us that we all begin our lives as a small collection of cells. And they remind us that in our zeal for new treatments and cures, America must never abandon our fundamental morals.”
Southern Baptist public policy leader Richard Land commended Bush for “standing by the principles he has articulated on this issue from the beginning.”
“The essential issue here is whether or not we as a nation want to underwrite the killing of unborn children in order to try to seek cures for older and bigger human beings,” said Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and an attendee at the White House event. “This is biotech cannibalism in which we eat our own young in order to treat and extend the lives of older and bigger human beings. Americans should be grateful we have a president who says, ‘No, this is not the kind of nation we want to be.’”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada criticized Bush’s veto, saying in a written release, “Democrats will not give up the fight for stem cell research. It is a fight America must win. We’re going to press Republicans to override this veto — just as we pressed to get it to the Senate floor and just as we pressed to get this bill passed.”
The White House ceremony capped a flurry of activity on legislation dealing with stem cells and embryos that began July 17.
After two days of debate, the Senate approved July 18 the embryonic stem cell bill Bush eventually vetoed. It also approved in 100-0 votes the “fetus farming” ban and a measure to fund research into developing embryo-like stem cells without creating or knowingly harming embryos.
The House also approved unanimously the “fetus farming” bill in a 425-0 vote, but failed to pass the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, S. 2754. Rep. Michael Castle, R.-Del., sponsor of the destructive embryo stem cell bill, campaigned against the alternative proposal, and the House fell 12 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to approve it under a suspension of the rules. The vote was 273-154 in favor.
“Human beings are not a raw material to be exploited, or a commodity to be bought or sold, and this bill will help ensure that we respect the fundamental ethical line,” Bush said in praising the passage of the “fetus farming” bill.
He expressed disappointment in the House’s failure to pass the alternative stem cell proposal, saying, “It makes no sense to say that you’re in favor of finding cures for terrible diseases as quickly as possible and then block a bill that would authorize funding for promising and ethical stem cell research.”
Land said of the unanimous congressional support for the “fetus farming” bill, “All Americans should rejoice that not one senator or congressman voted against the ban on fetus farming. That’s an overwhelming statement of the moral reprehension with which the Congress looks upon the idea of creating embryos for the express purpose of killing them to harvest their fetal tissue.”
Because the extraction of stem cells from embryos requires the destruction of the tiny human beings, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and other pro-life organizations worked ardently against the Castle bill. In a July 17 letter to a Senate pro-life leader, Land said the entity opposes the bill in the “strongest possible terms.” Land endorsed the other two measures.
The Castle bill would have underwritten research that uses embryos stored at in vitro fertilization clinics.
Unlike research using embryos, extracting stem cells from non-embryonic sources — such as umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat and bone marrow — does not harm the donor and has produced treatments for at least 72 ailments, according to Do No Harm, a coalition promoting ethics in research. These include spinal cord injuries, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and sickle cell anemia.
Embryonic research has yet to treat any diseases in human beings and has been plagued by the development of tumors in lab animals.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Life, Stem-Cell Research, Citizenship, Legislation, National, Social Issues, Science