WASHINGTON – Defying a veto threat from President Bush, the House on Tuesday approved legislation to lift restrictions that went into effect four years ago on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
The debate over the issue has pitted the hopes of patients suffering from debilitating ailments against the moral objections of conservatives, who see embryos as tantamount to children.
The 238-194 vote – well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto – brought together most Democrats and 50 Republicans, who feared that the United States was being left behind in an emerging area of medical research because of objections from abortion opponents and religious conservatives.
All six of Washington’s Democrats in the House voted to pass the bill, while two of the state’s three Republicans voted against it. Republican Doc Hastings did not vote.
Meeting with families who have had children from embryos donated by other couples, Bush said the vote raised “grave moral issues.”
“This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life,” Bush said. “Crossing this line would be a great mistake.”
On the House floor, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, likened embryonic research to “killing some in the hopes of saving others.”
His impassioned appeal was of little avail.
Lawmakers were lobbied by patients and their families – and even by one of their own, Rep. Jim Langevin, R-R.I., whose spine was severed in a gun accident as a teenager.
Stem cells from human embryos are thought to be able to develop into any type of cell in the body, from heart muscle to neurons in the brain. Scientists theorize that if they can discover how that development occurs, they may be able to develop a “cellular repair kit” for the human body.
The authors of the embryonic stem cell bill said they were not seeking confrontation with Bush over a veto, but instead were hoping to draw the White House into a dialogue that could lead to compromise.
The bill would allow federal funding of research involving embryonic stem cell lines created after August 2001, when Bush imposed the restrictions. Some of those 20 or so older lines are now believed to be contaminated. Privately funded research was not affected by the president’s order.
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