Senators pretend to hold fate of unborn in their hands
By Dwayne Hastings - Apr 11, 2007 - 1
You can call your senators by dialing the Capitol switchboard at 202/224-3121. The operator will then connect you to the senator’s office of your choice. If you do not know who your senators are, or if you would prefer to email them, click here, enter your zip code in the space provided, and e-mail them the suggested letter or write your own comments.
With the threat of a veto looming, the U.S. Senate is undeterred in its drive to aid scientists in their experimentation on the tiniest of humans.
With passage of Senate bill 5, legislation that would allow federally funded research on “human embryos that have been donated from in vitro fertilization clinics,” all but secured, Senate leaders are scrambling to cobble together a veto-proof “super majority” of at least 67 senators.
Word inside the Beltway suggests the bill’s supporters are perhaps only one vote shy of their goal.
Freshman Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) held to his convictional guns, announcing Tuesday, April 10 he would vote against the bill that would permit experimentation on embryos that “would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded.” The bill would require informed parental consent.
John Sununu (R-NH) and Ben Nelson (D-NE), among those senators reported to be undecided at press time, are being pressured by Senate leadership to support the measure.
The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (S. 5), introduced by Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), blows up President Bush’s August 9, 2001, executive order, which forbid the use of federal taxpayer dollars for research on embryonic stem cells other than the stem cell lines that were already in existence at the time of his order.
According to a commentary by Cathy Ruse in the April 10 Washington Times, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine reports “only 2.8 percent of the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos have been designated by their parents for use in research.” Ruse is a Family Research Council staffer. According to other studies, most couples who undergo IVF treatment are conflicted over what do with their excess fertilized embryos.
There is no legal regulation over how in vitro fertilization clinics dispose of unwanted, but fertilized, embryos.
Supporters of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) claim that leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization should be used to create new embryonic stem cell lines for research underwritten by the federal government because, they contend, the embryos will be discarded anyway. Privately funded ESCR research is ongoing.
“Unfortunately, embryonic stem cell research that causes the destruction of unborn babies is legal in the United States,” said Richard Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “The only question at issue before the Congress is whether or not American taxpayers are going to be required to have their tax money used to subsidize and aid and abet this slaughter of human life.”
Those who oppose the bill, including the ERLC, point out that embryonic stem cell research requires the killing of human embryos in order to derive their stem cells, thereby taking human life in its earliest stage.
Despite their over-hyped promises for cures, researchers have not produced a single human treatment through embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cell research, on the other hand, utilizes sources such as bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, fat, and placentas and does not harm or destroy human life. The ERLC, and the SBC in resolutions, supports this ethical form of stem cell research, which has treated more than 70 ailments, rather than embryo-destructive research.
If you agree that taxpayers should not have to fund research that requires killing human embryos, please tell your senators to vote against S. 5.
You can call your senators by dialing the Capitol switchboard at 202/224-3121. The operator will then connect you to the senator’s office of your choice. If you do not know who your senators are, or if you would prefer to e-mail them, click here, enter your zip code in the space provided, and e-mail them the suggested letter or write your own comments.
