{"id":7817,"date":"2006-06-30T10:42:14","date_gmt":"2006-06-30T14:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7817"},"modified":"2006-06-30T10:42:14","modified_gmt":"2006-06-30T14:42:14","slug":"stem-cell-research-is-on-the-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/stem-cell-research-is-on-the-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem-cell research is on the move"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been over a year, and I think we’re all probably a little tired of waiting. Thirteen months ago, the [tag]House[\/tag] easily passed<\/a> [tag]bi-partisan[\/tag] legislation that would remove restrictions on embryonic [tag]stem cell research[\/tag]. The companion measure in the [tag]Senate[\/tag] had a filibuster-proof majority, [tag]Bill Frist[\/tag] endorsed the bill and vowed<\/a> to bring it to the floor, and [tag]polls[\/tag] showed overwhelming support<\/a> from the public. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter wrote<\/a> at the time, “Unless there’s another war, stem cells will become one of the defining issues of the 2006 [tag]campaign[\/tag].”<\/p>\n

I’ve been disappointed by the lack of progress, but it seems we’re finally<\/i> going to see some action<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senate leaders from both parties agreed yesterday to [tag]schedule[\/tag] a [tag]vote[\/tag] on a package of bills that would loosen President [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s five-year-old restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research.<\/p>\n

With head counts suggesting there are enough votes to pass the legislation and with Bush having promised he would veto it, yesterday’s action sets the stage for what could be the first full-blown showdown between the chamber and the president.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, it does. The support for the legislation is broad and bi-partisan, and lawmakers hoping to score some points with voters on a popular policy matter are anxious to show their support for possibly life-saving medical research. The Bush White House, meanwhile, reiterated the president’s intention to veto the bill if\/when it reaches his desk.<\/p>\n

As regular readers know, I think lawmakers should ignore the threat. First, he’s failed to follow through on veto threats before (transportation bill, McCain\/Feingold). Second, using his first-ever veto to hand Democrats a powerful issue in a campaign year seems unusually unwise.<\/p>\n

And third, I still suspect Bush’s threat includes just a little wiggle room. The president has said he’d oppose any effort to “create new incentives<\/a> for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life” — except the legislation doesn’t create new incentives for anything; it merely uses embryos already created for in vitro fertilization. Similarly, the White House has also said the president would reject any effort to create human life “for the purpose of destroying it<\/a>,” which is fine since the legislation centers on using embryos that otherwise would be discarded — and the bill does not permit embryos to be created specifically for the purpose of medical research.<\/p>\n

I believe, in other words, that if Bush wants to sign this wildly popular bill, he can. It’s unlikely, but I hope supporters use this line to push the president politically.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the few weeks should be pretty interesting as this policy is put back on the front burner. Expect a floor vote by the end of July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been over a year, and I think we’re all probably a little tired of waiting. Thirteen months ago, the [tag]House[\/tag] easily passed [tag]bi-partisan[\/tag] legislation that would remove restrictions on embryonic [tag]stem cell research[\/tag]. The companion measure in the [tag]Senate[\/tag] had a filibuster-proof majority, [tag]Bill Frist[\/tag] endorsed the bill and vowed to bring it to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817","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=7817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}