The President vetoed his first bill this week, and as expected, the House failed to muster the 2/3rds majority necessary to override that veto. Only if both houses of Congress had voted by 2/3rds (members present with a quorum) would the bill have been saved.
It is often said and written that the President wants to ban stem cell research. This is false. Bush is in fact the first President to sign a bill funding stem cell research. What Bush wants to prevent is the creation of embryos for the purpose of harvesting their cells. I think he is right to want to prevent this. Leaving aside the question of moral and legal person-hood, the embryo is, biological speaking, a human being. It exists; it has its own complete genetic code; and under the right circumstances would develop into someone who deserves a social security number. To begin the biological process of individual genesis for the sole purpose of harvesting cells and organs would be heinous.
However, the bill just vetoed apparently concerned only existing embryos, created for the purpose of having children but no longer likely to be used for that purpose. If there is no realistic chance that these embryos, wouldn't it be better to use their cells for promising research than to destroy them?
That is the argument for the bill, and I confess that I am largely (though uncomfortably) persuaded. No one did anything wrong in the process of bringing the embryos about, unless one supposes that the procedures for in vitro fertilization are suspect, and I do not. Moreover, there are about 400,000 of such embryos stored, and this would provide a lot of stem cell lines for research (the cells can be reproduced in the laboratory more or less indefinitely, and each individual genome would constitute a distinct "line" of cells). If there is really promise in the use of stem cells, it may one day be possible to harvest some such cells from each person at an early stage, for the use of curing various diseases later on. Of course, no one knows yet whether this will pan out, but I would like to know.
I would probably have voted for the bill, though I would like to have seen legislation prohibiting the creation of embryos for the purpose of harvesting, and prohibiting any payment for such embryos. That, together with the apparently large supply of existing embryos would cut off the emergence of a black market.
That said, the President's position is a nuanced one, and he has certainly made an honest attempt to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable procedures. It is also important to note that the President's policy does not prohibit any research at all. It concerns only the issue of federal funding. Privately funded research is currently subject to no such restrictions, so far as I know.
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