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Bush limits support to work on projects now under way
August 9 - President Bush called stem cell research 'a complex and difficult issue.'
MSNBC
Aug. 9 - In what could be the most significant ethical and political decision of his administration so far, President Bush announced Thursday night that he would allow federal funding for potentially life-saving research on some existing embryonic stem cells. "At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental questions about the beginning of life and the ends of science," Bush said, but because of the promise the technology holds, "I have decided we must proceed with great care."
"I HAVE CONCLUDED that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines, where the life-and death decision has already been made," Bush declared.
Such stem cell lines are derived from "spare" frozen embryos not used when infertile couples resort to in vitro fertilization to conceive children.
"I have made this decision with great care, and I pray it is the right one," he said as he concluded his speech.
Bush's decision, a reversal of his statement in May that he opposed federal funding of such research, is sure to alienate social conservatives who gave him strong backing in last year's election.
It is also likely to frustrate researchers because it will limit the number of stem cells that can be used in federally funded research.
In his first nationally televised address as president, Bush said that federal money could be used to fund research on currently existing embryonic stem cell lines. Embryonic stem cell lines are cultures of stem cells that have been grown in the lab from one original stem cell extracted from an embryo.
Bush said the issue was fraught with "fundamental" ethical questions, but he acknowledged that "most scientists, at least today, believe that research on embryonic stem cells holds the most promise."
"If they [embryos] are going to be destroyed anyway, why not use them for good purpose?" the president asked.
Stem cells derived from human embryos already have been created by researchers at three U.S. institutions: Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the University of Wisconsin and the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va.
Bush's decision apparently will not permit federal money to be used to extract any new stem cells from embryos.
A 1995 federal law forbids federal funding of research in which an embryo is destroyed or placed at risk. The use of embryos for scientific research is also illegal in nine states.
The Clinton administration had sidestepped the 1995 law by permitting federal funds to be used to conduct research on embryonic stem cells as long the actual extraction of the stem cells was paid for with private funds.
Groups such as the American Medical Association, the Alzheimer's Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have urged federal funding to speed research into a technology they see as promising monumental medical breakthroughs.
It was not clear what practical effect Bush's decision will have. Only a limited number of research-quality stem cell lines are known to exist - estimates are fewer than 70, NBC's Robert Bazell reported - and some of those are controlled by private companies that would not seek federal funding.
Bazell said existing stem cell lines were believed to have a "shelf life" of only about two years, potentially limiting their usefulness.
The issue of federal funding has enormous political importance. By allowing even limited federal funding, Bush risks seeing his credibility suffer among some social and religious conservatives.
Gary Bauer, who ran against Bush in last year's Republican presidential primaries, was quick to denounce the president's decision.
"This is a tragedy and a disaster," Bauer told MSNBC.com. "What is the president going to say when the scientists run into a roadblock and need fresh samples? What is the moral basis from which the president can argue 'no' when he's already given up the central fact, which is that these are innocent human lives?"
Wendy Wright, a spokeswoman for the conservative advocacy group Concerned Women for America, said Bush's decision meant that his credibility with conservative "is shot. It comes down to an issue of trust. How can we trust him on any other issues?"
Asked whether Bush's decision might lead a conservative to challenge him in the 2004 presidential primaries, Wright said: "There's certainly that possibility. You have people like Gary Bauer, who has a solid record and who can be trusted on issues if human life."
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who issued a statement Thursday afternoon urging Bush "to allow this groundbreaking research to go forward with federal funding," had vowed to push legislation in the Senate to appropriate funds for the research if Bush refused.
And Bush's wife, Laura, said in a recent CNN interview that embryonic stem cell research could save lives and noted that leftover embryos from fertility treatments were destroyed anyway.
But she also said researchers could use stem cells obtained from adults. "I mean, there is other research - other ways to get to the same kind of research," she said.
Proponents of the research say it has the potential to lengthen many lives and point out that thousands of extra embryos - a ready source of stem cells - have been created by means of in vitro fertilization in fertility clinics.
Thousands of frozen embryos are discarded every year, while thousands of others are kept for possible future use.
According to Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which represents fertility clinics, it is generally up to the parents to decide what to do with the frozen embryos, although two states, Missouri and Louisiana, have statutes making it illegal to discard them.
Some ethicists, such as Leon Kass of the University of Chicago, have urged Bush to approve only federal funding of research on stem cells obtained from adults.
But National Institutes of Health science policy director Lana Skirbal said that "one of the major barriers with adult stem cells is getting them to proliferate in vitro. Even if they can differentiate into other cell types that might be used in therapy, you still have to get enough cells to be used in treatment. Embryonic stem cells replicate indefinitely in culture."
A continued ban on federal funding would not stop embryonic stem cell research. Last month, a team of scientists at the Jones Institute used private funds to create human embryos for the sole purpose of obtaining the stem cells in them, apparently the first time this had been done. The Jones Institute used in vitro fertilization to create the embryos.
A Worcester, Mass., firm, Advanced Cell Technology, is preparing to produce the world's first cloned human embryos from which it will extract stem cells.
WEDGE ISSUE For years, it was the Republicans who were able to use wedge issues such as gun control to divide Democrats, but stem cell research is proving to be the wedge issue that divides conservative Republicans such as Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Bill Frist of Tennessee, who support federal funding, from the social conservative activists who have been a vital part of the Republican coalition for more than 20 years.
Frist has offered a proposal under which no embryos could be created solely for research purposes and federal funds could go only to research using stem cells taken from embryos that would otherwise be discarded from fertility clinics.
In any event, the groups fighting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research will continue to wage their battle in Congress, which must decide later this year whether to renew the 1995 ban on federal funding.
NBC's David Gregory and Robert Bazell, MSNBC.com's Alex Johnson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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