House stem cell bill praised
WASHINGTON – A new round of debate on stem cell research opened Monday with emotional appeals by people who have survived diseases.
They praised one House measure due for a vote and hailed lawmakers who are pushing a further-reaching bill certain to draw a presidential veto.
“As you consider the funding options for stem cell research, please remember me,” Keone Penn, 18, said at a Capitol Hill news conference.
He said he was stricken with childhood sickle cell anemia and cured after a transplant from umbilical cord blood.
The action centered on the two bills up for House debate today, with many lawmakers planning on supporting them both.
One sponsored by Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Artur Davis, D-Ala., had wide bipartisan support and backing from President Bush. It would provide $79 million in federal money to increase the amount of umbilical cord blood for research and treatment and establish a national database for patients looking for matches.
The other, sponsored by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., also has bipartisan support but is opposed by the White House and House GOP leaders. To help drive that point home, debate will be closed with a speech by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who is known as an enforcer of discipline in Republican ranks.
That bill would lift Bush’s 2001 ban on federal funding for new research on embryonic stem cells, a controversial process requiring destruction of an embryo.
Decrying science that destroys life to prolong it, Bush last week promised to veto the Castle-DeGette bill, and some lawmakers were following suit.
The sponsors predicted the bill would garner the 218 votes needed for passage but fall short of the 290 votes needed to sustain a veto.
Votes of about 20 members of both parties were up for grabs, Castle said.
Driving the pressure is deep emotion behind the promise – disputed in some camps – that stem cell research could provide treatment and perhaps cures for diseases as diverse as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and childhood diabetes.
Adding fuel to the House debate was the announcement last week by South Korean researchers who, funded by their government, produced human embryos through cloning and then extracted their stem cells in the quest to grow patients’ own replacement tissue to treat diseases.
House GOP leaders planned to offer the Smith-Davis bill first on the House floor today as an alternative to the Castle-DeGette bill, which was scheduled for a vote later in the day.