{"id":4244,"date":"2005-05-19T13:01:32","date_gmt":"2005-05-19T17:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4244.html"},"modified":"2005-05-19T13:01:32","modified_gmt":"2005-05-19T17:01:32","slug":"stem-cell-bill-has-all-the-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/stem-cell-bill-has-all-the-momentum\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem-cell bill has all the momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m having as much fun as the next guy with the nuclear option debate underway in the Senate, but on the other side of the Hill, the chance for a real breakthrough<\/a> on federally-funded stem-cell research is at hand.<\/p>\n

Emboldened advocates of lifting current limits on embryonic stem cell research appear within reach of a breakthrough victory in the House as early as next week, a vote that would put fresh pressure on the Senate and White House to funnel significant federal money into the emerging field.<\/p>\n

House backers of legislation that would loosen restrictions imposed by President Bush in 2001 say they have 201 co-sponsors and enough private commitments to put them at or over the 218 votes needed to pass — a prospect that has so bitterly divided the GOP that two Republicans nearly came to blows on the House floor Monday night.<\/p>\n

Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.), a co-sponsor of the measure, said that if the vote on the bill were held today, it would pass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Republicans’ intra-party squabbles<\/a> seem to center around a centrist-sponsored poll done in some members’ districts without their knowledge. It led Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) to almost literally attack Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on the floor this week, before Renzi’s colleagues pulled him away.<\/p>\n

But the polling dispute is secondary to the realization that this fight is slipping away from conservative opponents of stem-cell research. And there’s not much they can do about it.
\n
\nIn the House, proponents not only have the votes, but Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) has promised to attach the language to appropriations bills or legislation reauthorizing the National Institutes of Health, where it will be tough to stop it<\/p>\n

In the Senate, the far-right can’t even count on a GOP filibuster.<\/p>\n

In the Senate, where Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is under pressure to schedule a floor vote on an identical bill, proponents have warned that they may have the 60 votes needed to kill a filibuster. “Whether he brings it to the floor or not, I think we’re going to get it to the floor,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, that’s Orrin Hatch<\/i> taking on Bill Frist<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Apparently, it’s helped to have opponents of abortion rights lobbying on behalf of the bill, noting that one can be both anti-abortion and pro-stem-cell research.<\/p>\n

Advocates are winning support from some antiabortion leaders with the argument that “cells in a Petri dish” that would otherwise be discarded are not comparable to a fetus that “would become a person in the normal course of events,” said John C. Danforth, an ordained minister and former Republican senator who served as Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

“There is only one argument against stem cell research, and that is meeting the demands of the religious right,” he said in an interview.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And speaking of the religious right, Tom DeLay<\/a> and far-right opponents of the Castle-DeGette stem-cell bill have come up with a last-ditch effort to derail the legislation by crafting a competing bill<\/a> that would offer less promise to those who would benefit from the medical research by limiting the research to umbilical-cord blood. It doesn’t appear to matter; the real bill already has too much support.<\/p>\n

By the way, in case you hear him saying it, DeLay is running around telling people that “every doctor” in the Republican caucus opposes the Castle-DeGette legislation, proof that medical experts reject the need for stem-cell research. That’s not true — Rep. Joe Schwarz (R-Mich.), a doctor, is one of the bill’s most vocal proponents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m having as much fun as the next guy with the nuclear option debate underway in the Senate, but on the other side of the Hill, the chance for a real breakthrough on federally-funded stem-cell research is at hand. Emboldened advocates of lifting current limits on embryonic stem cell research appear within reach of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}