As stem cell bill advances, president looks for veto pen

It is remarkable that President Bush, in six years in the White House, has not once felt strongly enough about a piece of legislation that he used the power of the presidential veto. During those years, Congress added $3 trillion (that's trillion with a T) to the national debt, but the president never got out his veto pen.
What's likely to happen in Washington this week is even more remarkable. President Bush has threatened to veto a piece of legislation.
And what issue has awakened the president from his lethargy? The war? The economy? Crime? Immigration? Pork barrel spending? No. No. No. No and No. The issue is stem cell research.
The Senate is poised to pass a bill that would expand federal aid for embryonic stem cell research. The process is believed by many scientists to hold the most promise for curing diseases such as juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's that strike millions of people. Polls show 70 percent of the American public supports it.
But in 2001, Bush halted federal funding of new embryonic stem cell studies, comparing the research to abortion because the process of extracting the crucial stem cells destroys embryos.
Flawed contention
He said at the time that such federal support for research could continue on the 78 stem cell lines then thought to exist. But in the years since, the National Institutes of Health confirmed that few, if any, of those lines are viable for clinical trials.
The bill has bipartisan support and is likely to pass the Senate with more than 60 votes, but not as many as the 67 that would be needed to override a veto. The bill passed the House last year, 238-194, about 50 votes short of being veto-proof.
Much of the emerging Republican support for stem cell research can be attributed to the appeals for passage from former first lady Nancy Reagan. President Reagan's widow made a personal and successful appeal to Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to break a standoff with conservatives who have blocked a vote.
And some of the support may be attributable to the fact that Republican husbands, wives, brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers and children are just as likely as those of Democrats to be stricken with the debilitating and deadly diseases that might be combated through stem cell research.
The opposition to stem cell research is driven by conservative Christian and Catholic religious philosophy.
The Catholic News Service reports that Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that destroying an embryo is equivalent to an abortion, and excommunication would apply to doctors and researchers who destroyed an embryo. A church is free to feel so strongly about an issue that it would excommunicate someone, but civil law should not be bent to conform to canon law.
Likewise, presidential adviser Karl Rove is free to believe, as the Christian Coalition of America reported with obvious approval, that, & quot;We were all an embryo at one point, and we ought to as a society be very careful about being callous about the wanton destruction of embryos, of life. & quot; But Rove's belief that an embryo is, from the instant it is created in a laboratory dish life itself -- not just a potential human being -- is not a universally accepted truth. And it is not a belief that should form the basis for U.S. federal law or policy.
Bad policy
The United States should not become a second- rate power in medical research because the president feels a need to veto legislation based on his religious interpretation of when life begins.
People of all faiths -- or no faith at all -- who are suffering with all manners of disease should not be denied the best possible treatment because of the religious beliefs of some Christians.
Many of the stem cells that would be used in medical research would come from fertility clinics, which produce more embryos than they can use. Most of these unused embryos will eventually deteriorate and be destroyed.
Michael Kinsley, a Washington Post columnist, argues convincingly that anyone who is morally opposed to stem cell research must also be morally opposed to fertility clinics, since clinics routinely create more embryos than most couples will use.
And, indeed, any religious leader is free to tell his followers whether they should have children through the use of a fertility clinic or whether they should accept medical treatment that was developed through the use of stem cell research.
But religious leaders, or political leaders who feel strongly about their religion, should not be making public policy based on those narrow -- sometimes very narrow -- philosophies.
Put away your veto pen, Mr. President. There have been better days on which you could have used it. There could be better days to come.