Bush to Decide on Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Sept, Pro-Life Rep Offers Possible Compromise

Washington, DC - President George W. Bush said on Saturday he would make a decision on whether to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research before Congress returns to work in early September after a summer break.

"There'll be a decision before Congress comes back," he told reporters as he left the National Naval Medical Center following his first presidential physical examination.

Meanwhile, a pro-life Congressman, Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), is hoping to have found a posible compromise on the issue that could allow for "embryonic" stem cell research destroying unborn childeren.

Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief counselor, Mary Matalin, met separately last week with Bartlett to discuss Bartlett's claims that the stem cells used in scientific research could be "cleaved" from the embryo in a way that would allow the embryo to "reform" and, possibly, still be implanted in a woman's womb.

"This is a solution that I believe everyone in Congress can support to the perplexing controversy concerning embryonic stem cell research," Bartlett, a former physiology professor at the University of Maryland and a one-time researcher at the National Institutes of Health, wrote in a letter he circulated on Capitol Hill this week. So far, however, the ability to cleave cells while preserving the embryo is an untested theory.

The White House confirmed the meetings, and Bartlett's staff said there have been several follow-up discussions between the congressman's office and the White House.

"He will continue to look at all the scientific and ethical issues involved," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

What Bartlett proposes is that a small part of a days-old embryo could be carved away before the embryo is implanted in a woman's womb. Stem cells would be taken from the cleaved portion of the cell cluster. The remaining embryo then would be allowed to rejuvenate and, if the timing is precise, be implanted. However, even the researchers Bartlett consulted before advancing his plan caution that the technique is only "theoretically possible." No one has taken stem cells from a human embryo without destroying it.

The technique also raises ethical questions of its own, scientists said.

Many embryos likely would have to be destroyed while the technique is being developed and perfected, they said, and no one knows how an embryo rejuvenated after cells have been cleaved away would progress in the womb.

"Who is going to take the chance to find out?" asked one source at the National Institutes of Health.

David Prentice, a genetics professor at Indiana University's medical school and a leading critic of embryonic stem cell research, said Bartlett was overly enthusiastic in telling the White House and lawmakers that "destruction is not really necessary for embryonic stem cell research."

"In theory it is possible," said Prentice, one of the researchers Bartlett consulted before announcing his plan. "Whether it would be practically done, I can't speak to that."

Federal law prohibits federal financing of embryonic stem cell research. However, the Clinton administration circumvented the law by ruling that researchers using federal money could use stem cells derived from embryos as long as the cells were harvested by a private agency. Bush now must decide whether to alter that course.

In last year's campaign, Bush vowed to oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. He told pro-life groups he would pursue research on adult stem cells instead.

Bartlett, who represents a very conservative district in western Maryland and opposes federal funding for stem cell research that destroys an embryo, entered the current debate last week after touring research facilities at the National Institutes of Health.

During that July 23 tour, which pro-abortion Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL) helped organize, Bartlett first quizzed researchers on the possibilities of harvesting stem cells without destroying the embryo.

"They admitted that it is feasible to remove the cell material from embryos that is most promising for research without killing the embryos," Bartlett later wrote to fellow lawmakers.

As an pro-life Congressman with a scientific background, Bartlett hailed the promise of stem cell research but assured his colleagues, "I am equally committed to respecting the sanctity of life." With the technique he proposes, Bartlett said, "we can both respect life and have the medical benefits of embryonic stem cell research."

Two days after the NIH visit, Bartlett met with Rove. He met Matalin the day after that.

Pro-Life Infonet
06. august 2001