WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to reject restrictions President Bush has placed on embryonic stem-cell research. Bush plans to veto the bill, but his restrictions are unlikely to last for long after his presidency.
The candidates running to succeed Bush in 19 months largely endorse federally supported stem-cell research. That support, coupled with the backing of a majority of Americans, means change is almost certain.
"The war is basically won, the policy is going to be updated; it's just a matter of when," said Lawrence Soler, a vice president at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which lobbies for embryonic stem-cell research.
Stem cells: An article Thursday in Section A incorrectly attributed a quote to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). In fact, Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.) said: "The question we're debating is, when does life begin," as he spoke in support of embryonic research. "Life begins with mom, life begins with the joining of life and spirit."
Bush has cast stem-cell research as a moral issue intimately connected to the question of when life begins, a question that echoed throughout the second day of Senate debate. Bush used the only veto of his career to overturn a similar bill last year.
"I believe this will encourage taxpayer money to be spent on the destruction or endangerment of living human embryos," Bush said in a statement.
The conservative groups and religious right that make up Bush's base praised his stand and said legislators must be educated to understand the potential of alternatives. "In two years, we could have such significant breakthroughs this is no longer an issue," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "It becomes harder and harder to argue with science, and the success is in the area of adult stem cells."
But the majority of leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates support research on embryonic stem cells.
Former Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, strongly backs the research, while Democratic hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois co-sponsored the Senate bill that would expand the number of embryonic stem-cell lines eligible for federally funded research.
That bill, known as the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, or S5, passed 63 to 34, winning the same number of votes as a similar bill last year. Sixty-seven votes are needed to overturn a presidential veto. The House passed its version of the bill in January, 253 to 174, also short of the votes needed to override a veto.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) supports expanded funding for embryonic stem-cell research as long as embryos are not intentionally created for research.
