As Senate pushes to pass a bill that has already made it through the House — allocating federal funds to enable and expand stem-cell research — the White House has released a “Setting the Record Straight” memorandum titled “President Bush’s Stem Cell Policy is Working” to reaffirm his committment to using his first-ever veto should the bill pass as expected.
But the president’s information is not only inaccurate, it’s ridiculous, and republicans from Senate Majority leader Frist to former First Lady Nancy Reagan have rallied behind the bill, which would essentially expand the potential for stem-cell research, which was curtailed by Bush in 2001, who compared the culling of cells from a five-day-old embryo — a glob of cells barely visible under a microscope — to abortion.
AP Medical writer Lauran Neergaard writes,
“Embryonic stem cells are essentially master cells, able to morph into all the cell types found in the body…. [T]hey potentially could grow replacements for damaged tissue ? new insulin-producing cells for Type 1 diabetics or new nerve connections to restore movement after spinal injury, for example.
As Think Progress illustrates, “while the facts have changed, Bush’s mind has not.”
Continue reading “Will Bush Really Veto the Stem-Cell Bill?”
He’s out there in a lonely Icelandic fishing village, running up treeless hills with a bag of stones slung over his shoulder. His nickname is Lalli and he’s the blonde man with arms like jackhammers in the poster on the boxing gym wall. He’s Iceland’s heavyweight champion, and if Fabio, head coach at the Reykjav?k boxing gym can finalize arrangements, those jackhammers will be on me in less than two weeks.
Its true — Lebanon was growing into a