[tag]Karl Rove[/tag] sat down with the Denver Post editorial board this week and said that if the Senate passes the [tag]DeGette[/tag]-[tag]Castle[/tag] [tag]stem-cell[/tag] [tag]bill[/tag], which has overwhelming public support and will pass with a bi-partisan majority, it will draw the first [tag]veto[/tag] of [tag]Bush[/tag]’s presidency.
“The president is emphatic about this,” Rove – Bush’s top political advisor and architect of his 2000 and 2004 campaigns – said in a meeting with the editorial board of The Denver Post. […]
“We were all an [tag]embryo[/tag] at one point, and we ought to as a society be very careful about being callous about the wanton destruction of embryos, of life,” Rove said. Recent research, he said, shows that researchers “have far more promise from [tag]adult stem cells[/tag] than from embryonic stem cells.”
I don’t expect much in the way of sophisticated policy analysis from Rove, but his argument here is laughable. People may have been an embryo at one point, but this starts to get awfully close to every-sperm-is-sacred territory. As for the idea that there’s “more promise from adult stem cells,” Rove is simply wrong. As David Shaywitz, an endocrinologist and stem cell researcher at Harvard, explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last year, adult stem cells are only helpful in treating blood ailments. “In fact, there is little credible evidence to suggest adult stem cells have the same therapeutic potential as embryonic stem cells,” Shaywitz explained.
Science aside, the politics here is important. Bush, in an election year that’s likely to be difficult for Republicans anyway, is slated to use his first-ever veto to reject a very popular piece of legislation that holds out the promise of [tag]medical[/tag] advancements for millions. What’s more, despite bi-partisan appeal, there are just enough opponents of the policy in Congress to prevent a [tag]veto[/tag] override.
This is going to be an unusual fight. There have been plenty of partisan conflicts since the president took office, but this will be the first in which the White House is fighting against a high-profile policy with broad bi-partisan support among lawmakers and the public.
The dynamic isn’t complicated.
On one side will be the GOP’s religious right base and the movement’s inflexible and illogical demands. On the other side will be everyone else, including well-known anti-abortion lawmakers (such as Orrin Hatch and John McCain), Nancy Reagan, the entire scientific community, the public at large, and every family in America with someone who has Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, a spinal cord injury, or one of the many other ailments that could be treated with stem-cell research — if only Bush would take his foot off the brake.
We’re also likely to hear quite a bit from researchers who are tired of watching the United States fall further and further behind.
Will the United States be part of the most exciting medical research of our time? With global competitors poised to eat our lunch, a few private and state-funded efforts won’t be enough. “You can’t do research with your feet bound and one hand tied behind your back,” says Jerome Groopman, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
A portion of the far-right GOP base vs. the rest of the nation. “Pro-cure” vs “anti-cure.” The choice belongs to the president. I’m not optimistic.
A year ago, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, whose medical history makes the stem-cell debate a personal issue, said stem-cell research will probably “become one of the defining issues of the 2006 campaign.” If Rove is right, Alter’s prediction may very well come true.