[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14457-14458]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           STEM CELL RESEARCH

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, over the next 2 days we will be discussing 
the issues surrounding stem cell research and discussing a total of 
three bills over the course of 48 hours. Our discussion over the next 2 
days will focus on science and on ethics and how science and ethics 
interplay.
  Science: We are in a remarkable era of exciting and rapidly 
accelerating advances in developmental biology. New doors of 
exploration have been thrown wide open by the Human Genome Project and 
by our new knowledge and our new understanding of molecular and 
cellular mechanisms. Some have called this 21st century the century of 
cells--a century that will explode with regenerative medicine so that 
heart surgeon Bill Frist will no longer have to cut out a diseased 
heart and replace that diseased heart with a healthy heart but would 
rather treat a patient with cells requiring no surgery.
  We are going to be discussing ethics. Although not easy, we do have 
to confront head-on the difficult issues around life's beginnings, all 
of which have large scientific, moral, and religious implications. The 
rapidly advancing science has taken us to today's debate.
  As we will see in our discussions on the floor of the Senate, it is 
safe to say that no scientific issue is more divisive today than this 
discussion surrounding stem cells. As others have said, you can't do an 
end run around all of these ethical challenges. They are before us, and 
they are going to come with increasing frequency with advancing 
science. Our responsibility as policymakers is, through deliberation 
and through dialog and through debate, to frame those moral principles 
which protect and defend human dignity and promote scientific advances 
and medical applications that will lead to healing.
  In the last century, we faced ethical controversies over organ 
transplantation, my field: Who would receive a scarce organ? What are 
the criteria to determine brain death? We had ethical discussions and 
ethical controversies over blood transfusions: Who receives blood 
transfusions? What are the indications? We also faced ethical dilemmas 
over genetic therapy.
  Well, the 21st century, the current century, brings even more 
profound ethical questions, and they are going to come with increasing 
frequency. How we and humanity handle our gathering control over these 
mysteries of cell development and embryo development will reflect who 
we are as a people and where we are going.
  Today, the Senate will begin debate on these three important pieces 
of legislation: the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies 
Enhancement Act, from Senators Santorum and Specter; the Fetus Farming 
Prohibition Act of 2006, Senators Santorum and Brownback; and the Stem 
Cell Research Enhancement Act, the so-called--in the House--Castle-
DeGette bill, and in the Senate, the Specter-Hatch bill.
  Many of my colleagues have, like me, spent hours grappling with these 
issues: the future of stem cell research, how we balance pro-life 
positions with the potential for new life and health offered by stem 
cell research. There is, perhaps, an inclination to avoid such 
difficult issues, to ignore them and to let others debate, but I have 
come to realize we must participate in defining research surrounding 
the culture of life. If not, it will define us.
  Five years ago, on July 18, 2001, I came to the Chamber and laid out 
a comprehensive proposal to promote stem cell research within an 
ethical framework. I proposed 10 specific interdependent principles. I 
also said that policymakers and the public must reassess on an ongoing 
basis the research and the circumstances under which it

[[Page 14458]]

is conducted because science will continue to advance. As the 21st 
century progresses and as science--developmental biology--advances, we 
will continually face moral and ethical challenges. It is our 
responsibility, as individuals and as a body politic, to reassess the 
constructs governing biomedical research. It will define us. That is 
why I brought cord legislation to the floor earlier in the year, and it 
was passed.
  As I said then and as I believe now, we must also do all we can to 
pursue other alternative strategies that will hold potential for 
developing pluripotent stem cell lines without damaging or destroying 
nascent human life. That is why, in the package before us today, I have 
asked the Senate to consider legislation to enhance support for 
alternatives to embryonic stem cell research. I am extremely pleased 
that Senator Santorum and Senator Specter worked together to craft the 
Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act. Their bill 
is similar to legislation I worked on with Senator Isakson and others 
of our colleagues last year, and I encourage every Senator to support 
it.
  This bill would fund alternative methods of potentially deriving 
pluripotent stem cells, including extracting from embryos that are no 
longer living, nonlethal and nonharmful extraction from embryos; 
extraction from artificially created organisms that are not embryos but 
are embryo-like; and reprogramming adult cells to a pluripotent state 
through fusion with embryonic cell lines. There is no reason this 
legislation shouldn't gather the support of every Member of this body. 
It should unify us.
  The second bill we will consider is the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act 
of 2006. Specifically, the bill prohibits the implantation and 
gestation of an embryo in a human or animal for the purpose of aborting 
for research--the manufacture of human life for experimental purposes. 
Senators Brownback and Santorum have proposed legislation that would 
draw a clear line which should not be crossed. This is a forward-
leaning pro-life bill, a moral guardrail in place before any inducement 
exists to promote it.
  Shortly after I originally outlined my principles 5 years ago, 
President Bush announced his policy on embryonic stem cell research. It 
federally funded embryonic stem cell research for the first time. It 
did so within an ethical framework, and it showed respect for human 
life.
  President Bush and I do not differ about the need for strong 
guidelines governing stem cell research. His policy was generally 
consistent with the principles I set forth a month before his 
announcement back in 2001. However, as science has progressed over the 
last 5 years, we have learned that fewer than the anticipated number of 
cell lines have proved suitable for research, and I think the limit on 
cell lines available for federally funded research is too restrictive.
  H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, addresses this 
restriction in our current policy. It has many shortcomings, but it is 
clearly consistent with my fifth principle on stem cell research: 
``Provide funding for embryonic stem cell research only from 
blastocysts that would otherwise be discarded.'' In fact, the bill 
applies what I proposed in 2001 verbatim. It allows Federal funding for 
research using only those embryonic stem cells derived from blastocysts 
that are left over after in vitro fertilization and would otherwise be 
discarded.
  Mr. President, in closing, all three of the bills the Senate will 
address beginning at 12:30 today will raise profound ethical questions 
that are challenging. They merit serious dialogue, and they merit 
serious debate. That is why I am pleased that on an issue of this 
magnitude, Senators will have the opportunity over the next 2 days to 
have their ideas considered and voted on separately and cleanly.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, am I correct that we are now in a period of 
morning business?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 
minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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