Bush Vetoes Stem Cell Bill

[smurphy]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/20/bush.stem.cell.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pushing back against the Democratic-led Congress, President Bush vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have eased restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

"Our innovative spirit is making possible incredible advances in medicine that can save lives and cure diseases," the president told an invited audience in the East Room.

"America is also a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred. And our conscience calls us to pursue the possibilities of science in a manner that respects human dignity and upholds our moral values," he said.

Democrats, who had made the stem cell legislation a top priority when they took control of the House and Senate in January, were quick to denounce the president's decision.

"This is just one example of how the president puts ideology before science, politics before the needs of our families, just one more example of how out of touch with reality he and his party have become," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, told the Take Back America conference of liberal activists Wednesday.

Sen. Barack Obama, another Democratic presidential hopeful, said Bush was "deferring the hopes of millions of Americans who do not have the time to keep waiting for the cure that may save or extend lives."

To blunt criticism, Bush issued an executive order directing the Health and Human Services Department to promote research into cells that -- like human embryonic stem cells -- also hold the potential of regenerating into different types of cells that might be used to battle disease.

If the measure Bush vetoed would have become law, the White House said it would have compelled taxpayers for the first time in our history -- to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos.

Spokesman Tony Snow said Bush's executive order encouraged scientists to work with the government to add research on new stem cell lines -- that does not involve the creation, harming or destruction of human embryos -- to the list of projects eligible for federal funding.

"The president does not believe it's appropriate to put an end to human life for research purposes," Snow said. "That's a line he will not cross."

This was the third veto of Bush's presidency. His first occurred last year when he rejected legislation to allow funding of additional lines of embryonic stem cells -- a measure that passed over the objections of Republicans then in control. The second legislation he vetoed would have set timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. (Interactive: Past vetoes by Bush and other presidents)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to schedule an override vote, but the date has not been set. Democrats, however, currently do not have enough votes to override Bush's veto.

Scientists were first able to conduct research with embryonic stem cells in 1998, the NIH says. There were no federal funds for the work until Bush announced on August 9, 2001, that his administration would make the funds available for lines of cells that already were in existence.

States and private organizations are permitted to fund embryonic stem cell research, but federal support is limited to cells that existed as of August 9, 2001. The latest bill was aimed at lifting that restriction.

The science aside, the issue has weighty political and ethical implications.

Public opinion polls show strong support for the research, and it could return as an issue in the 2008 elections.

Opponents of the latest stem cell measure insisted that the use of embryonic stem cells was the wrong approach on moral grounds -- and possibly not even the most promising one scientifically. These opponents, who applaud Bush's veto, cite breakthroughs involving medical research conducted with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood and amniotic fluid, none of which involves the destruction of a human embryo.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

 

[Eddie Haskell]

I can already hear history laughing.

Eddie

 

[Happy Hippo]

"America is also a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred. And our conscience calls us to pursue the possibilities of science in a manner that respects human dignity and upholds our moral values," he said.

:142smilie :142smilie :142smilie :142smilie


I may have never laughed so hard.

 

[SpursDynasty]

 

[The Sponge]

Pharmacueticals are still steaming about the money they lost from the Polio cure. This makes them very happy.

 

[djv]

I just don't understand. His reasons seem so week. He worries about human life?? I dam sure missed when he started that.

 

[The Sponge]

I can already hear history laughing.

Eddie

There is a certain part of our country that buy's into this bullshit but what can you do?:shrug:

 

[WhatsHisNuts]

This should be reason enough to impeach his dumb ass out of the oval office. This is why religion and government don't mix. Bush is letting his ridiculous beliefs interfere with the lives of millions of Americans. Unreal. This is right on par with the Catholic priests that are teaching Africans about the dangers of condom use. It is crazy, and people don'tchallenge his moronic position because it is entrenched in his faith....and we're not allowed to challenge anyone's faith. Wake the eff up people, this is an outrage.

Capital punishment - ok
Killing cells of uncreated lives - bad

Makes sense to me.....Hypocrite.

"Religion poisons everything." -Christopher Hutchins

 

[WhatsHisNuts]

9 minute YouTube video on Missouri's quest to legalize stem cell research.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUb3dsrR8AA&mode=related&search=

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Probably should have waited and trapped a few more--but can't pass on exposing Edward--AGAIN


Actually I believe--and correct me if I'm wrong--this is not a ban of stem cell as Hilliary said yesterday--but ban on federal funding--

---and would someone remind Hilliary that last time there was actual ban on stem cell research it was imposed by non other than her husband and lifted by non other than GW--

Wish the had a happy face coolaid icon here.

Hilliary--
"As President, I will lift the ban on ethical embryonic stem cell research and allow our scientists to pursue treatments that could help millions of Americans."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

" There is no ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. On August 9, 2001, President Bush lifted a ban imposed by President Clinton and authorized federal funding on the 60 embryonic stem cell lines created up until that date. The federal government currently provides over $600 million annually for stem cell research and has provided $196 million in federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research alone from FY2003 - FY2008."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=73497

 

[Eddie Haskell]

Nice one Sherlock. You really exposed me. I just feel all naked with my communist manifesto hanging out of my ass.

Speaking of exposed and in honor of your lowlinesses attendance at the upcoming golf outing, I thought I'd bring back your authoritative piece on the 2006 junk science awards.

For those interested in Waynes unbiased views, please take a look at the general forum thread entitled "junk science awards 2006". For your convenience, I've brought this classic thread up to the first page.

The true Wayne (the insurance agent) is seen. Lies, spin, your basic internet bullcrap to support John Birch society positions is well documented. You are one f***ing stupid southern hillbilly.

Eddie

 

[gardenweasel]

well,hold your water,guys....i totally agree with you.....

this is utter insanity....what were they gonna do with the stem cell lines,anyway?.....

destroy them,is my guess...so,it makes common sense to try and derive some potential social benefit from useles,albeit biological material.....

use it for the public good...

this is much different than,say,the late term abortion issue....

this is silly,imo....

please impeach bush....i`m down with it...as long as nancy lugosi stays very far away from the whitehouse...

 

[Chadman]

Of course, once again, Wayne tries to blame Bill Clinton for something and take a swipe at Hillary in the process. Not surprisingly, he left out much of the important parts of the Clinton stem cell decisions/discussion, which might be of interest to anyone not trying to blame him for all of the world's problems...one could derive from Wayne that Clinton was against stem cell research, when that was (of course) far from the truth. He showed some interesting idealogy in his decision to not create embryos for the purposes of creating stem cells for research. And not doing away with, as Wayne hints, stem cell research in general...the info here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/dispatches/050413.html

The important parts here:

The Clinton legacy

President Bush's stem cell decision, like the many state measures, is part of a long history of lawmakers grappling with the ethics of human embryo research. In fact, since the advent of in vitro fertilization, which produced the first "test-tube" baby in 1978, the federal government has avoided funding any work with human embryos. Many scientists say that this has hobbled research into infertility, birth defects, cancer, and methods for diagnosing genetic disease in embryos.

In one sense, Bush's administration is a turning point. He has presided over the first flow of federal funds to a promising area of research that relies on destroying human embryos. And yet Bush's repeated claims to be "the first president ever to allow funding" for human embryonic stem cell research (made, for instance, during the second nationally televised presidential debate in fall 2004) are not accurate. Here, he lays claim to a stem cell legacy that isn't his. Truth is, Bush's immediate predecessor, Bill Clinton, was a far greater supporter of human embryonic stem cell research.

Recall the political context. In 1993, with something called the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, Congress and President Clinton gave the NIH direct authority to fund human embryo research for the first time?ushering in what seemed like a new era. In response, the NIH established a panel of scientists, ethicists, public policy experts, and patients' advocates to consider the moral and ethical issues involved and to determine which types of experiments should be eligible for federal funding. In 1994, this NIH Human Embryo Research Panel made its recommendations?among them, that the destruction of spare embryos from fertility clinics, with the goal of obtaining stem cells, should receive federal funding. Embryos at the required stage are round balls no bigger than a grain of sand.

The Dickey-Wicker Amendment

President Clinton rejected part of these recommendations and directed the NIH not to allocate funds to experiments that would create new embryos specifically for research. But for the Gingrich-era Congress that took up the matter in 1995, funding any work with human embryos was going too far, and the recommendations created an uproar. Within a year, Congress had banned the use of federal funds for any experiment in which a human embryo is either created or destroyed. Known as the Dickey-Wicker Amendment for its authors, Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, and Representative Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, the ban passed as a rider attached to the appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. Congress has actively renewed that ban each year since, thus relegating all human embryo research to the private sector.

Such was the state of affairs when, in 1998, using?by necessity?private funds, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin successfully created the first human embryonic stem cell lines. Clinton's NIH knew the historic nature of that achievement. "This research has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine," Harold Varmus, director of the NIH, testified at a Senate hearing that year. New treatments for conditions like Parkinson's, heart disease, diabetes, and spinal cord injury now appeared possible. But the research needed years of federal support in order to flourish?and the Dickey-Wicker Amendment stood squarely in the way.

Or did it? In January of 1999, Harriet Rabb, the top lawyer at the Department of Health and Human Services, released a legal opinion that would set the course for Clinton Administration policy. Federal funds, obviously, could not be used to derive stem cell lines (because derivation involves embryo destruction). However, she concluded that because human embryonic stem cells "are not a human embryo within the statutory definition," the Dickey-Wicker Amendment does not apply to them. The NIH was therefore free to give federal funding to experiments involving the cells themselves (what Republican Senator Sam Brownback, of Kansas, called a bit of "legal sophistry.")

The NIH, with input from the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and others, went on to develop guidelines outlining the types of human embryonic stem cell research that would be eligible for federal funding. These Clinton Administration guidelines, published in August of 2000, forbid the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos to derive stem cells (because of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment), but permitted research with stem cells that other, privately funded scientists had already derived from spare embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics.

President Clinton strongly endorsed the new guidelines, noting that human embryonic stem cell research promised "potentially staggering benefits." And with the guidelines in place, the NIH began accepting grant proposals from scientists. Thus, it was the Clinton Administration that first opened the door to federal funding.

 

[Jabberwocky]

oops..sorry, Chad already addressed issue

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Excuse me Chad but could simplify this and tell me which part of what I said was incorrect?

I did say correct me if I'm wrong -but what I see in your post would confirm it--did I miss something

Would you please highlight the part that was incorrect--instead of doing the PBS two step around the issue :shrug:

 

[Chadman]

I suppose that if you want me to say that your commentary was intended to give the entire picture of Clinton's position on Stem Cell research and funding, then I'd have to say I cannot do that. For the record, the President does not create nor pass legislation, and Clinton only "mandated" guidelines against federal funding for pure creation of new embryos for the sole purpose of research - which I think is a very appropriate situation than most would agree with. I could be wrong here...did Bush advocate federal funding for pure creation of new embryos for the sole purpose of research and then to be destroyed, and reinstate that? Is he for that situation now? Since the legislation that became law was created by legislators, I do not follow your dots.

Maybe I am mistaken, but I think your intent was to paint the Clinton's against each other, and I wanted to point out that both were - and are - very much for the large majority of stem cell research scenarios, including federal funding. Are you suggesting Bush is more favoring this funding? Maybe I read too much into your post. I think it's clear where he stands at this point, and I think it's clear where Hillary stands in stark contrast. Just trying to keep things in proper perspective when looking at the big picture.

 

[Chadman]

Although that may have been a little PBS Two-Steppy...I'll stick with it...not my best work, but my best seems to garner no responses of late...

:tongue

 

[Jabberwocky]

Excuse me Chad but could simplify this and tell me which part of what I said was incorrect?

I did say correct me if I'm wrong -but what I see in your post would confirm it--did I miss something

Would you please highlight the part that was incorrect--instead of doing the PBS two step around the issue :shrug:

I will simplify it for it you DTB.

"---and would someone remind Hilliary that last time there was actual ban on stem cell research it was imposed by non other than her husband and lifted by non other than GW"

Bill Clinton did not ban stem cell research and GW did not lift ban.