The following statement was released by
the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in Washington,
D.C., on Wednesday, July 19, 2006, at 6:50 PM EDT. For
further information, contact 202-626-8825 or e-mail
Legfederal@aol.com
WASHINGTON (July 19, 2006) --
Actions taken by President Bush today will
advance ethical forms of stem cell research,
while strengthening federal policies against
promoting research that requires the killing of
humans, said a spokesman for the National Right
to Life Committee (NRLC).
"President Bush is advancing
ethical research, while standing firmly against
exploiting living members of the human family as
sources of spare parts," said NRLC Legislative
Director Douglas Johnson.
President Bush today vetoed
H.R. 810, a bill that would have required
federal funding of some types of stem cell
research that require the killing of human
embryos who were created by in vitro
fertilization. The House promptly sustained the
veto, 235 to 193 (which was 51 votes short of
the two-thirds margin necessary to override).
The Senate, which passed the bill on July 18 by
a vote of 63-37, will not vote on the veto
override.
Deplorably, a minority of
House members on July 18 blocked approval of a
bill (S. 2754), which earlier had passed the
Senate unanimously, to encourage federal funding
of research into methods of obtaining
pluripotent stem cells without harming human
embryos. (Pluripotent cells are those that can
morph into most types of body tissue.
House supporters of
embryo-killing research, led by Rep. Mike Castle
(R-De.), denied S. 2754 the two-thirds majority
required to pass on a fast-track procedure. (S.
2754 did receive the support of
a 273-154 majority,
including 93 percent of House Republicans and 30
percent of House Democrats.)
Johnson commented, "House
members who blocked the alternatives bill are
interested in funding only the type of stem cell
research that kills human embryos. Any
scientists who have ideas for
non-embryo-killing alternatives need not apply.
And they call us ideologues." (To read NRLC's
rebuttal of Congressman Castle's attack on S.
2754, click
here.)
Lamenting that obstruction,
today President Bush directed the National
Institutes of Health to support research on
"stem cell techniques that advance promising
medical science in an ethical and morally
responsible way."
In addition, President Bush
today signed into law S. 3504, sponsored by
Senators Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Sam Brownback
(R-Ks.), to ban some forms of human "fetus
farming," meaning the use of tissue and organs
from humans gestated for that purpose in a human
or animal womb. This NRLC-backed bill passed
the Senate 100-0 and the House 425-0 on July 18.
Johnson noted that biotech
researchers have already gestated cloned cows
for four months and then aborted them to harvest
tissues for transplantation. "The biotech firms
are not spending money on such research to find
a cure for heart disease or liver disease in
cows -- they believe that such methods will have
application in humans," Johnson commented. "The
Santorum bill places a roadblock in the biotech
industry's path to human fetus farming."
To read NRLC's letter to
the House in support of the veto, click
here.
To read or view President
Bush's remarks at the White House today, click
here.
For more information on
human embryo research, human cloning, human
fetus farming, and related issues, see:
