Tragedies jog GOP shift on stem cells [View All]

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Tragedies jog GOP shift on stem cells

By Dana Wilkie
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

October 22, 2005

WASHINGTON – Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., who has repeatedly authored bills that would ban abortion, once told a wheelchair-using young man she could never support the stem cell research that he believed might one day help him walk.

But then her close friends had a baby with muscular dystrophy, her husband developed cancer and died, and her mother-in-law succumbed to dementia. The day after her mother-in-law's death in May, Emerson stood on the House floor and asked: "Do they not have as much right to life as that embryo that is going to be tossed away?"

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In a rare defeat for Bush, the House in May voted 238-194 to ease those restrictions, with the support of 50 Republicans. The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, or H.R. 810, would allow federally funded research on stem cells from fertility-clinic embryos that otherwise would be discarded. No federal money would go to scientists using embryos harvested solely for research. Bush has threatened to veto the legislation.

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When he was diagnosed in February with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph glands, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's support for stem cell research was already well known. Months of chemotherapy have solidified his resolve to persuade fellow Republicans to join his crusade. Also, last year Specter lost his 48-year-old chief of staff to breast cancer and a good friend was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

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Longtime abortion foe Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader from Tennessee, referenced his ethical responsibilities as a transplant surgeon when he announced this summer that he would break with Bush and support the House bill. "I am a physician," Frist told his colleagues. "My profession is healing. I have devoted my life to attending to the needs of the sick and suffering. . . . In all forms of stem cell research, I see . . . great promise to heal." Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who has opposed abortion for all of his 21 years in Congress, said his support for stem cell research is based partly on family tragedies: His father died of complications from diabetes at 71, his brother died of liver cancer at 44, and his first granddaughter died in the womb because of a crimped umbilical cord. Other prominent, anti-abortion Republicans who supported the House bill included Bakersfield Rep. Bill Thomas, who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch.

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