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STEMCELLS-QUINN Jul-19-2006 (580 words) xxxn
Senate passage of embryonic stem-cell expansion called 'a disservice'
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Senate's July 18 vote to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research does "a disservice to human life and to the cause of medical progress," said the head of the U.S. bishops' pro-life office.
"No technical achievement is 'progress' if it takes us backward in respect for human life," said Gail Quinn, executive director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a statement following the 63-37 vote on the Stem-Cell Research Enhancement Act.
Quinn expressed confidence, however, that President George W. Bush would follow through with a promise to veto the legislation, approved last year by the House of Representatives, and that he would sign two other bills on stem-cell research "that respect the claims of both science and ethics."
The two bills -- the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006, prohibiting "the solicitation or acceptance of tissue gestated for research purposes," and the Alternative Pluripotent Stem-Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, which would increase federal funding of research into ways to derive pluripotent stem cells without destroying embryos -- each passed unanimously in the Senate July 18.
"Both these proposals are welcome and much needed," Quinn said.
But the Stem-Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would permit federally funded embryonic stem-cell research using embryos discarded after in vitro fertilization attempts, takes the focus away from "effective and morally acceptable treatments using adult and umbilical-cord stem cells, which have already begun to treat patients with dozens of illnesses," she said.
"Because it takes resources away from these effective avenues, the drive for embryonic stem-cell research actually threatens to harm patients themselves," Quinn added.
Before the votes, Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore had called on the Senate "in the name of sound ethics and responsible science" to reject expanded funding of embryonic stem-cell research and approve the two other bills.
The cardinal, who chairs the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said the expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research "violates a decades-long policy against forcing taxpayers to support the destruction of early human life." He also criticized the argument that embryos would be discarded by clinics anyway as "morally deficient."
"The fact that others may do harm to these nascent lives gives Congress no right to join in the killing, much less to make everyone else complicit in it through their tax dollars," he wrote.
But when morally acceptable alternatives might be available, "Congress has a responsibility to explore how such research may be advanced," the cardinal said.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a July 18 press briefing before the votes that Bush feels "honor-bound to veto" the Stem-Cell Research Enhancement Act, as he has long promised to do.
"The president is not opposed to stem-cell research; he's all for it," the spokesman said. "But there is one kind of research, and that is that which involves the destruction of human life, that he does not think is appropriate for the federal government to finance. He's been absolutely clear about that; there is no shading in it."
It would be the first veto by Bush, although Snow said "there have been 141 veto threats during the course of this administration." In the majority of those cases, "Congress has come back and given him what he wanted," the spokesman added.
Congress was not expected to be able to muster enough votes to override a Bush veto on stem cells.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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