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Bush veto looms on US embryonic stem-cell plan
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 07 - 06 - 2007


US lawmakers Thursday approved plans to expand
government funding for stem-cell research using human embryos,
defying a promised veto by President George W Bush, who called the
measure a "grave mistake," according to dpa.
The Democratic-led lower House of Representatives passed the
measure by 247-176 votes, more than 40 votes short of the two-thirds
margin needed to override a presidential veto. Bush in July 2006
rejected a virtually identical bill passed by a Republican-led
Congress.
The plan sets up a clash between ethics and scientific progress,
and forces US taxpayers "to support the deliberate destruction of
human embryos," Bush said in a statement Thursday.
"Crossing that line would be a grave mistake," he said, adding
that he would veto the bill.
Scientists believe stem-cell research holds the promise of cures
for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes, but the
debate over the use of embryos has caused years of emotional debate
that has cut across party lines.
Opponents of research that uses embryos discarded after in-vitro
fertilization argue that other sources are equally promising and less
morally controversial, including adult stem cells from nasal tissue,
umbilical cord blood, bone marrow and fatty tissue.
"Destroying nascent human life for research raises serious ethical
problems, and millions of Americans consider the practice immoral,"
the White House said in a separate statement.
Under a policy adopted by Bush in 2001, federal funding for
embryonic stem-cell research is limited to about 20 lines of
human embryonic stem cells that existed at the time.
"Researchers have been investigating innovative techniques that
could allow doctors and scientists to produce stem cells just as
versatile as those derived from human embryos, but without harming
life," Bush said Thursday in a statement issued from the Group of
Eight summit in Germany.
US newspapers reported Thursday that scientists turned mouse skin
cells into what are in effect embryonic stem cells, signalling a
potential breakthrough in the debate if the process works in humans.
Bush, a born-again Christian, has refused to open up federally
funded research to more stem-cell lines for a mix of moral, religious
and political reasons.
Democratic Congresswoman and House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Roman
Catholic, evoked religion in remarks on the chamber's floor urging
Bush to approve the bill.
"Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to
a place that is biblical in its power to cure and that is the
embryonic stem cell research," she said.
The House originally approved the bill in January. After the
Senate passed its own version in April, a second House vote was
needed.


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