To go to the NRLC home page, click
here.
To go to the Human Embryo index, click
here.
National Right to Life Commends President Bush
for Executive Order and Veto, Advancing Research While Respecting Human Life
The following statement was released by the National
Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in Washington, D.C., on
Wednesday, June 20, 2007, at 3 PM EDT. For further
information, send an e-mail to
Legfederal@aol.com.
WASHINGTON (June 20, 2007) -- The
National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) today expressed
strong approval of President Bush's
veto of legislation (S. 5) that would mandate federal
funding of the type of stem cell research that requires the
killing of human embryos. NRLC also commended the President
for issuing an
executive order to promote more federal funding for
promising types of stem cell research that do not require
harming human embryos.
On June 7, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) said that
“science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its
power to cure -- and that is the embryonic stem cell
research.” NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson
commented, "Since not a single human being has benefited
from any procedure using embryonic stem cells, Pelosi's
statement is yet another demonstration that the
congressional Democratic leadership is more interested in
demagoguery than in supporting the most promising types of
stem cell research, which do not require killing human
embryos."
A close vote is expected in the Senate on
whether to override the veto, which would require the votes
of two-thirds of the sworn senators who are present and
voting. If the Senate votes to override, S. 5 would return
to the House of Representatives. The House has already
voted on the issue twice this year -- on January 11
(253-174, on passage of H.R. 3, which is very similar to S.
5), and on June 7 (247-176, on passage of S. 5). There were
different absentees on each occasion, but every House member
voted on at least one of those two occasions, and if all
House members had voted on June 7, the margin of passage
would have been 35 votes short of a two-thirds margin.
Contrary to some claims by Congresswoman Diana DeGette
(D-Co.), there was no movement in either direction between
the January and June roll calls.
According to a report in Roll Call
(June 20), Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.) also intend to insert language in the appropriations
bill for the Department of Health and Human Services, which
they proclaim as a "compromise," but which in reality would
overturn the President's policy. NRLC's Johnson commented,
"Such grandstanding won't overturn the President's pro-life
policy, but it could result in the entire appropriations
bill being vetoed." Indeed, the Roll Call article
reports, "But one Senate Democratic source said the addition
of the stem-cell provision will help divert attention from
the price tag of the bill, which is expected to be far more
expensive than the president requested."
On May 3, President Bush sent Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) and House Speaker Pelosi letters
in which he said, "I will veto any legislation that weakens
current Federal policies and laws on abortion, or that
encourages the destruction of human life at any stage."
More than one-third of the members of the House have signed
a letter to the President, pledging that they will vote to
sustain such vetoes. To view or download these letters, go
to
http://www.nrlc.org/press_releases_new/Release050307.html
To read NRLC's April 2 letter to Senators in opposition
to S. 5, go to:
To read a recent essay from National Review
Online highlighting examples of widely disseminated
misinformation about embryonic stem cell research, click
here.
To go to the Human Embryo index, click
here.
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