Politics
Friday July 29, 2005
Frist Support for Specter’s Embryo Research Funding Bill Called “Betrayal”
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
WASHINGTON, July 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, has broken with President Bush by giving his support to a bill that proposes to expand federal funding for unethical embryonic stem cell research. The Bill, strongly opposed by conservative lawmakers, pro-life family groups and the White House is sponsored by pro-abortion Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.
AScribe Newswire quotes Michael Munger, an expert in congressional-presidential relations, stating, "The Bush administration will consider this a betrayal."
Frist, who supported legislative attempts to save the life of Terri Schiavo, appears to have lost the thread on the use of embryonic human beings as fodder for medical experiments. The Tennessee Senator justified his flip-flop by stating on the floor of the Senate today, “It's not just a matter of faith, it's a matter of science.”
Senator Frist may be unaware that thus far the hope of embryo research producing any cures whatever is daily growing more remote as ethical adult and umbilical cord blood stem cell research continues to far outstrip it in actual results.
The Senator from Tennessee, a heart-lung transplant surgeon, said as recently as a month ago that he did not support public funding of embryo research “at this juncture.” He announced his turn-around this morning in a lengthy Senate speech saying, “We should expand federal funding and the accompanying (National Institutes of Health) oversight and current guidelines governing stem-cell research, carefully and thoughtfully staying within ethical bounds.”
Frist's comment about “ethics,” however, is nonsensical if the humanity of the human embryo is understood. If he is referring to the “ethical bounds” set by the so-called bioethicists who advise governments around the world on crafting public policy on embryo research, he is making a circular argument. Bioethicists are in complete agreement that an embryo is not a human person deserving of any legal protection whatever. The strongest ethical objection that is possible to embryo research is one that totally precludes using them for experimental research.
Understanding this, the Bush administration limited public funding for embryo research to those stem cell lines already created from embryos. Since that funding restriction, the biotechnology lobby has been putting immense pressure on the government to reverse its policy.
The proposed bill has passed the House and now stands a better chance in the Senate after Frist's endorsement. White House spokesman Scott McClellan reiterated the President’s stand against further funding for embryo research after Frist made his speech.
The turn-around is surprising to pro-life observers moreover, since Frist, as recently as last October, slammed Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards for his support of embryo research. Frist said in October 2004, in an apparent reference to the fact that even stem cell researchers have admitted that embryo research is failing to offer progress on finding cures, “It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest.”
“Stem cell research is promising,” Frist said then. “The president vigorously promotes adult and embryonic stem cell research, but he does it with an ethical and moral framework.”
Significantly, after Frist’s speech, stock prices for stem cell research companies rose sharply with that of leading company, StemCells Inc., increasing nearly 21%. Embryonic stem cell research is seen to be a potentially far more lucrative source of financial profit for researchers and drug companies than adult stem cell research which does not involve selling stem cells and does not require subsequent life-time use of anti-rejection drugs.
Pro-life groups were quick to respond. “Sen. Frist cannot have it both ways. He cannot be pro-life and pro-embryonic stem cell funding. Nor can he turn around and expect widespread endorsement from the pro-life community if he should decide to run,” said Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition.
See related LifeSiteNews.com report:
MONEY IS MOTIVE FOR EMBRYONIC RATHER THAN ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03040901.html
Specter Backpedaling for His Political Life Against Tidal Wave of Opposition
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/04110802.html
hw
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.