Many thousands of Americans with terminal illnesses hope the 110th Congress supports their “right to life” by expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. As 80 Noble laureates explained in a letter to President Bush, “therapies using these cells may one day provide important new strategies for the treatment for a host of currently untreatable disorders.” The House of Representatives’ recent passage of H.R. 3, which promotes federal funding of this important research, represents renewed determination to override President Bush’s 2006 veto on this issue. But H.R. 3 failed to garner a veto-proof majority and, because it merely repackages the same proposal that Bush vetoed in 2006, it will likely achieve nothing more than another political stalemate. A new approach is required if federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is to become a reality.
H.R. 3 limits federal funding to embryos created for reproductive purposes that exceed the clinical needs of women seeking in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment and that would otherwise be discarded; the bill requires informed consent and prohibits financial inducements for embryo donations. These ethical constraints, however, did not dissuade President Bush from vetoing identical legislation last year. The president gave three reasons for his decision: A frozen embryo is a nascent human being; federal funding should not support research that destroys nascent human life; and these frozen embryos could be placed for adoption by making them available to infertile couples. The administration has limited research to pre-existing embryonic stem cell lines (“where the life and death decision has already been made”). Due to contamination and other problems, however, fewer than 20 such lines have been available for federally funded research. In contrast, H.R. 3 would make eligible for federally funded stem cell research many of the 400,000 unused embryos that IVF clinics have held in frozen storage for years (most of which will inevitably be discarded as medical waste).
