[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15036-15039]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, a few hours ago, the President used his 
first ever veto in his 6 years of being in office to kill H.R. 810, the 
Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, a bill that is supported by over 70 
percent of the American public, a bill that was supported by a 
bipartisan majority of the House, a bill that was supported by a 
bipartisan, big majority in the Senate--63 Members of the Senate, 
Republicans and Democrats, voted for it yesterday--and is supported by 
591 different patient advocacy groups, research institutions, 
universities, scientific organizations, biomedical research 
institutions--everything from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's to cancer, 
spinal cord injuries, you name it. This bill has almost been 
universally supported. Over 80 Nobel laureates support this bill. 
Virtually every reputable scientist in America supports this bill.
  I will mince no words about the President's action today. The veto he 
cast is a shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy, and contempt for 
science. It is cruel because it denies hope to millions of Americans 
who suffer from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, who have already received 
the death sentence of Lou Gehrig's disease, kids suffering from 
juvenile diabetes all over America, those suffering from cancer and 
spinal cord injuries, and many other diseases and injuries.
  The best scientists in the world, as I said, including many dozens of 
Nobel Prize winners and every Director at the National Institutes of 
Health say that embryonic stem cell research offers

[[Page 15037]]

enormous potential to cure these illnesses, to ease suffering, to make 
the lame walk again.
  H.R. 810 would have expanded Federal funding to pursue this research. 
But with the stroke of his pen today, the President vetoed this bill 
and dashed the hopes of millions of Americans.
  This veto displays hypocrisy because the President describes the 
research as immoral. He himself provided Federal funding for it. His 
press Secretary, Tony Snow, claimed yesterday that using leftover 
embryos, even those already slated to be discarded, is tantamount to 
murder. That is the word he used. Here is his own words. Mr. Snow said:

       The President believes strongly that for the purpose of 
     research, it is inappropriate for the Federal Government to 
     finance something that many people consider murder.

  Mr. Snow went on to say that the President is one of those people who 
consider the practice to be murder.
  This is a very bizarre statement. First, H.R. 810 would not allow 
Federal funding to be used to derive human embryos. That is already 
prohibited by existing law. And I couldn't believe my ears today when I 
heard the President say that H.R. 810--which passed with 63 Senate 
votes, and passed with the majority of the House--would overturn over 
10 years of Federal prohibitions against deriving embryos.
  I couldn't believe the President said that. The bill expressly does 
not do that. How could he say that? Either A, he did not read the bill; 
B, his assistants didn't read the bill; or C, he is purposely 
misleading the American public.
  We do not overturn what is called the so-called Dickey-Wicker 
amendment that prohibits Federal funds from deriving stem cells. That 
is existing law. Federal funding can only be used to conduct research 
on stem cell lines, not to derive them. That derivation has to be 
funded privately. The President himself has already supported that.
  What is even stranger and more bizarre and more hypocritical is that 
the President has already endorsed embryonic stem cell research. Under 
the policy that he announced 5 years ago, on August 9, 2001--I remember 
it well. I was in Iowa. I was listening to the radio, listening to his 
speech because this was an area of interest to me. Senator Specter and 
I had the first hearings in 1998, right after Doctors Gearhart and 
Thomson had derived the first human embryonic stem cells at the 
University of Wisconsin. That was in November of 1998. We commenced 
hearings after that, and when I was chairman I continued the hearings. 
So I was chairman of the committee at the time--and of the 
subcommittee--that funded these programs at the time, so I was 
listening to the President's speech.
  Under the policy that he announced nearly 5 years ago, he allowed 
Federal funding--get this--he allowed Federal funding for research on 
embryonic stem cell lines that were derived before 9 p.m, August 9, 
2001, but no Federal funding for any research on any lines derived 
after that date and time.
  So let's look at this. Here is the stem cell hypocrisy. The President 
of the United States--President Bush--said that all the stem cell lines 
derived before August 9, 2001, at 9 p.m.--is morally acceptable. If 
they are derived after 9 p.m. on August 9, 2001, they are morally 
unacceptable. Who drew this line, I ask? What right does the President 
of the United States have to say that something is moral before 9 p.m. 
and immoral afterward? I mean, what about the lines that were derived 
at 9:05 p.m. or 9:30 p.m? Why is that line there? It is because the 
President arbitrarily drew it.
  So I ask, if using discarded embryos to extract stem cells is murder, 
isn't it then immoral to allow Federal research on existing lines of 
embryonic stem cells, as the current administration policy permits? 
Murder is murder, Mr. President. So if you, Mr. President, are saying 
that it is all right for Federal funds to be used for research on stem 
cell lines derived before August 9, 2001, at 9 p.m., why is that any 
different from afterward? Why isn't it here murder and here it is not? 
And isn't it immoral to allow privately funded embryonic stem cell 
research to continue?
  Now, again, as we heard many times on the Senate floor over the last 
couple of days of debate, privately funded embryonic stem cell research 
goes on in the United States, but according to the President, this is 
murder. And if it is really murder to take left over human embryos and 
cause them to cease to be embryos, but to take the stem cells out, why 
isn't the President using his authority, his moral authority to shut 
down all the in vitro fertilization clinics in America?
  By his definition of murder, these clinics are institutions of mass 
murder because they routinely dispose of countless unwanted embryos. 
Virtually every time a couple goes to a fertility clinic, left over 
embryos are created. That is how the IVF--in vitro fertilization--
process, works. Eventually, after moms and dads have had their 
children, when they have had all the children they want, they either 
call the clinic or the clinic calls them--someone has to pay to keep 
these frozen, so the clinic may call and say: Well, we have all these 
embryos left over. Do you want to continue to pay to have them frozen?
  No, we don't want them anymore. You have our consent to discard them.
  Every day this happens. If that is murder, then how can the President 
permit it to continue? Where is his outrage? Where is his outrage at 
the IVF clinics in this country? Why isn't he here proposing 
legislation to shut down in vitro fertilization in this country, make 
it a crime, a Federal crime to conduct in vitro fertilization?
  In the President's narrow moral universe, it seems to be fine to 
destroy embryos--to throw them away as the byproduct of producing 
babies through IVF, but it is murder to use the embryos to conduct 
lifesaving research. Someone please explain the logic of that to me.
  One more time: In the President's narrow moral universe, to take 
these unwanted embryos that are left over from in vitro fertilization 
clinics, throw them away, flush them down the drain, that is OK. To 
take the same embryos, extract the stem cells, keep them alive, keep 
them growing, to perhaps discover something that will save someone's 
life, that is murder.
  I don't get it. Who gave the President the authority to draw that 
line? He may be the President of the United States, but he is not the 
moral authority for all Americans. I say, Mr. President, you are not 
our moral Ayatollah. You don't have that right, and you don't have that 
power. Oh, you can veto legislation. You can veto it. But you notice, 
when the President vetoed the bill today, he didn't veto it on the 
grounds it was unconstitutional. He did not veto it on the grounds it 
spent too much money. He did not veto it on any grounds that Congress 
exceeded its authority, none of the usual reasons that a President 
gives for vetoing a bill. He vetoed it because he said it is immoral, 
tantamount to murder.
  No. I am sorry. It is hypocrisy at the extreme for the President to 
take that position. As I said, if you take the lines before August 9 at 
9 p.m., it is OK; after August 9 at 9 p.m., it is not OK. No, you are 
not our moral Ayatollah, Mr. President. You may be our President, and I 
respect you for being the President of the United States. I respect the 
office. But I don't pay any respect to someone trying to dictate to me 
the moral authority of the President of the United States; that somehow 
you can define what is moral and what is immoral. Leave that to our 
religious leaders. Leave that to our theologians.
  Why isn't the President prosecuting the many thousands of American 
men and women who use these IVF clinics? If their attempts to have 
children result in leftover embryos and their embryos eventually get 
discarded, aren't they complicit in murder? Let's say a couple had in 
vitro fertilization; they wanted to have children. They finally have 
their children, and they say: We don't want the rest of those embryos, 
you can discard them--because they have to approve it. Are they 
complicit in murder?
  Under the President's narrow moral logic--I hate to call it logic--
under the

[[Page 15038]]

President's narrow moral view, any man or woman who allows their 
embryos to be discarded, something that happens every single day all 
over the country, is authorizing murder. Why is the President standing 
idly by? Why isn't he putting all these men and women in jail? I would 
have to warn him, though, there are over 50,000 babies born every year 
to couples via IVF. We are going to have to build a lot of jails if you 
are going to throw them all in jail for murder.
  As I have said, the President's veto is cruel for dashing the hopes 
of millions of Americans who suffer. It is hypocritical, as I pointed 
out here, because the President says it is OK in one moment but it is 
not OK here.
  I want to point out another thing the President gave misinformation 
about today. He said today that there were 22 lines, stem cell lines 
for research--from here on this chart. That is OK, you understand. That 
is morally OK because, according to the President, it was before 9 p.m. 
of August 9. I still don't understand that, but somehow that is morally 
OK. What he didn't tell you is that when he made this decision at 9 
p.m. on August 9, at that time he said there were 78 lines. Now he says 
there are 22.
  There is one other thing the President didn't say today and we all 
know is a scientific fact: Every single one of those stem cell lines is 
contaminated because they were all grown in Petri dishes with mouse 
cells to energize them and grow them--so they are all contaminated. 
They will not be used for human therapies. Many of those stem cell 
lines are sick. They are not viable. He didn't tell you that, either, 
did he? He didn't tell you that they are all contaminated with mouse 
cells. He didn't say that.
  As I have said, it is cruel, it is hypocritical, and his veto today 
shows a shocking contempt for science, a disdain for science. I don't 
know who the President's science teachers were when he was in school, 
but I will bet none of them are bragging about it.
  The President's political adviser, Karl Rove, told the Denver Post 
last week that researchers have found ``far more promise from adult 
stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.'' I hate to disagree with 
such a renowned biomedical expert as Karl Rove but, frankly, he does 
not know what he is talking about and his statement is absolutely, 
totally, irrevocably false.
  Here is what Dr. Michael Clarke of Stanford University said about Mr. 
Rove's claim: It is ``just not true.'' I will take Dr. Clarke's word 
over Mr. Rove's any day of the week. Dr. Clarke is the director of the 
Stanford stem cell institute, and he published the first study showing 
how adult stem cells replicate themselves. So here is an authority on 
adult stem cells basically saying what Karl Rove said is just not true. 
Yet Karl Rove says it.
  Dr. Stephen Teitelbaum also disagrees with Mr. Rove. Dr. Teitelbaum 
is a professor of pathology at the Washington University School of 
Medicine in St. Louis, a former President of the Federation of American 
Societies for Experimental Biology. I spoke with him on the phone 
yesterday. He said something that struck me, and I wrote it down. He 
said if people want to disagree on moral grounds, that is fine. If 
people want to have a certain moral view of something, that is their 
right in our society. But they don't have the right to buttress their 
claims with misinformation and falsehoods. In other words, the 
President and Mr. Rove are entitled to their own moral opinions, 
whatever they may be. However narrow they may be, they are entitled to 
them. But they are not entitled to mislead the public with 
misinformation and falsehoods. And that is what the President did 
today. That is what the President did today.
  The facts are that virtually every reputable scientist in this 
country believes in the promise of embryonic stem cell research to cure 
and treat diseases. It has the greatest potential to do so. By vetoing 
H.R. 810, the President is closing his heart and his mind to the facts, 
to the science, and to the strict ethical guidelines we put in the 
bill.
  By his veto today, the President has put himself in some very 
illustrious company down through history, people such as Cardinal 
Roberto Bellarmino, who told Galileo that it was heresy for him to 
claim that the Earth went around the Sun. Religious teaching at that 
time said that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything 
revolved around the Earth. We forget that Galileo was sentenced to life 
in prison.
  The President also puts himself in the company of people such as Pope 
Boniface VIII, who banned the practice of cadaver dissection in the 
1200s, and for 300 years it was banned. There was no dissection of 
cadavers until finally someone came along who decided to do it and 
discovered all of the different ways the muscles work in the body. Of 
course, now we know that cadaver dissection from donated cadavers has 
led us to all kinds of medical breakthroughs and the understanding of 
how the human body works. But here was a Pope who said: No, you can't 
do it. Just like the President today--no, you can't do it. So the 
President can take his place alongside Pope Boniface VIII.
  The President could also take his spot alongside people such as Rev. 
Edward Massey, who had this to say in 1722 in response to the new 
science of vaccination. Here is what Reverend Massey said:

       Diseases are sent by providence for the punishment of sin 
     and a proposed attempt to prevent them is a diabolical 
     operation.

  Imagine how many millions of lives would have been lost if the 
Reverend Massey's ignorance had prevailed, if a President of the United 
States had said: You know, Reverend Massey is right, we are not going 
to permit vaccinations. Think of it. President Bush, take your place 
right alongside him.
  I might add you don't even have to go back so far. The President has 
company in more recent times. Just a few decades ago, many religious 
people considered heart transplants to be immoral--heart transplants to 
be immoral. Others objected on moral grounds to the use of anesthesia 
during childbirth, saying that the Bible held that women were meant to 
suffer when delivering babies.
  Many people opposed in vitro fertilization, one of those being Dr. 
Leon Kass. Guess what he was. He was the head of this President's 
Bioethics Council. Years ago, he opposed in vitro fertilization. Do you 
get the picture? And the President made him the head of his Bioethics 
Council.
  I guess, Mr. President, you can take your place alongside Leon Kass, 
too. Tell all those wonderful families out there who have had babies 
through IVF, tell them that they were wrong, they should not have had 
them.
  In all of these cases, we look back with a sense of astonishment that 
people could be so blinded by a narrow view of religion or ideology 
that they could stand in the way of scientific progress that has saved 
lives, eased pain and made life better for so many people.
  Twenty or 30 years from now, history books will ask the same question 
about this President. People will wonder: How could he have objected to 
research that has led to so much good for so many people?
  Maybe not in my lifetime--I don't know how long God will give me here 
on Earth. But maybe these young people's lifetimes here, the pages, 
maybe in their lifetime through the embryonic stem cell research that 
is being done in Great Britain, Korea, Singapore, and other places 
around the world where a number of scientists--because they are 
handcuffed to do that research here--will find a way of taking 
embryonic pluripotent stem cells and finding how they make nerve cells. 
And guess what. Just as they have done with rats--we have seen the 
films of rats with their spinal cords severed, taking embryonic stem 
cells from other rats and putting them into these rats and watching 
them walk again. As my departed friend Christopher Reeve, the first 
Superman, said after that, ``Oh, to be a rat.''
  You all remember the tragedy of Christopher Reeve. He was paralyzed 
from the neck down. He fought so hard for embryonic stem cell research.
  It has been said that we are 99 percent rat. I don't mean just us 
politicians. I mean humans. And politicians, maybe more. I don't know. 
But it is

[[Page 15039]]

said of humans that we are basically 99 percent the same DNA as a rat. 
We can do it for rats. It is not hard to think that the same thing can 
be done for humans.
  It is going to happen in their lifetimes--the lifetimes of these 
young people here today. Somewhere, in Great Britain, somewhere, they 
can do this research and we will find out how to take these cells--
people like my nephew Kelly who hasn't walked for 27 years because of a 
spinal cord injury--and make it possible for people like him to walk 
again.
  People will say, What was this President thinking? Like Pope Boniface 
VIII, like Cardinal Bellarmino, like Reverend Massey--how could the 
President have objected to this ethical good research that has led to 
so much good for so many people?
  Let's be clear. Nothing could be more pro-life than signing this bill 
into law.
  We all know people--friends or family members--with ALS or 
Parkinson's or juvenile diabetes or a spinal cord injury. What could be 
more pro-life than using the scientific tools that God has given us to 
help heal them?
  White House spokesperson Tony Snow said yesterday, ``The President is 
not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something that is 
living and making it dead for the purpose of research.''
  Again, I want to emphasize a couple of things. We carefully crafted 
H.R. 810 to impose strict ethical standards on embryonic stem cell 
research. This bill would not allow Federal funds to be used to create 
or destroy human embryos. The only embryos we are talking about are 
those already slated for destruction in the clinics. It is right there 
in the bill. Let me read it:

       Prior to the consideration of embryo donation and through 
     consultation with the individuals seeking fertility 
     treatment, it was determined that the embryos would never be 
     implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded.

  It is right there in the bill.
  All we are saying is, instead of discarding some 400,000 embryos that 
are currently sitting frozen in storage, let us use some of them--as 
long as the donors give written informed consent--to help people who 
are suffering from diseases. I think it is this choice that is truly 
respectful of human life.
  Besides, the stem cells that come from those embryos don't die. That 
is the amazing thing about stem cells. They keep reproducing 
themselves. They just keep reproducing themselves. They will be more 
alive when used as treatment in research than if they were washed down 
a drain or sit in storage for another hundred years.
  Think about that. They talk about destroying these embryos. If you 
take an embryo from an IVF clinic and destroy it, wash it down the 
drain, that is the end of it. That really does destroy the embryo. That 
does kill it. That ends it.
  But if you take that embryo and take the stem cells out--talking 
about a blastocyst which has about 100 or 200 cells--take some of those 
cells out, those cells live. They are alive. They do not die. They 
live. They grow. They became tissue, nerve tissue, bone tissue, or 
maybe they became other things that we can use to help cure disease. 
They live. It seems to me that it is the pro-life position. Using 
research to improve people's lives is a true pro-life position.
  Once again, the President has staked out an extreme ideological 
position--a position that flies in the face of science and common 
sense. He refuses to listen to any other point of view, including the 
pleas of Nancy Reagan, Republican supporters of the bill, scientists 
all over America, and people at NIH.
  I was told that some Republican supporters of this bill requested an 
opportunity to talk with the President, and they were turned down. He 
didn't even want to talk to them.
  As I have said, President Bush's veto is cruel, hypocritical, and 
absolutely disdainful of science. But I guess most of all, it is just 
sad. It is just sad.
  On Monday and Tuesday, we had a great debate. On Tuesday we had a 
great bipartisan vote, 63 Senators, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, 
conservatives, pro-life, pro-choice, all came together to support life-
saving research. That was also supported by more than 70 percent of 
Americans. It was a huge debate for millions of Americans suffering 
from disease and paralysis who might be cured by this life-saving 
research.
  After the vote, I went upstairs. There was a young woman in a 
wheelchair. She must have been upstairs watching the vote. I didn't ask 
her name. She was using a wheelchair, and she said, ``Thank you--thank 
you for giving me hope.''
  Today, the President slammed the door. He took that hope away. How 
sad. How sad.
  The President insists that he knows better than the American people; 
he knows better than all of the scientists; he knows better than all 
the directors at the National Institutes of Health; he knows better 
than 63 Senators; he knows better than the majority of the House.
  So with one arrogant stroke of his pen, he dashed the bill, dashed 
the hopes of millions of Americans. He vetoed the hopes. It wasn't just 
a veto of the bill. He vetoed the hopes of millions of Americans living 
with Parkinson's, ALS, juvenile diabetes, and spinal cord injuries.
  Where is the President's compassion? How dare the President refer to 
himself as a compassionate conservative.
  I don't think you can get much more conservative than Senator Orrin 
Hatch, Senator Smith, Senator Lott, and a number of Senators here. I 
named them because they are cosponsors of the bill. You don't get much 
more conservative than that. Can you get much more conservative than 
Nancy Reagan? I don't think so. They were compassionate. They were 
truly compassionate.
  My message to my nephew Kelly who waited 27 years, my message to 
millions of others whose hopes were raised this week and then sadly 
crushed today, my message is this: The President's veto is not the 
final word. It may be this year because to get the agreement to bring 
up the bill we had to agree that we wouldn't bring it up again this 
year. So it is over for this year. Perhaps next year, when Senator 
Specter and I will reintroduce this bill along with others in January, 
we will have more Senators here. We will have more Senators who 
represent the true wishes of the American people, who understand the 
necessity for moving ahead on stem cell research.
  Maybe the voters this fall will speak about that. All those families 
who have someone with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or juvenile diabetes, 
maybe they will say, Look, we need people in the Senate and in the 
House who will help us get over this veto.
  The President's veto is not the final word. Science is on our side. 
Ethics is on our side. There is an election in November. It will be 
known where every candidate, where he or she stands on embryonic stem 
cell research. We will introduce it again in January. We will be back. 
We will not go away. And just perhaps we will have a few more Senators 
and a few more Members of the House who want to do the ethical, right 
thing, and help cure disease and suffering with the potential of 
embryonic stem cell research.
  It is a sad day, a sad day, indeed. We will be back.

                          ____________________