President Bush announced today that tomorrow he will veto stem-cell legislation allowing federal funding for stem-cell research using excess embryos created by fertility treatments. The bill was passed by the House on June 7, but lacks the 2/3 majority necessary to override the predicted veto.
Bush’s statement today included the quote that “Each of these human embryos is a unique human life, with inherent dignity and matchless value…These boys and girls are not spare parts.” Bush previously used the “spare parts” metaphor in 2006 when he rejected a bill (passed by a Republican Congress) that would have allowed couples to donate their extra embryos to research rather than store them or have them destroyed. The Senate failed an attempted veto.
Only ten percent of frozen embryos are implanted; 500,000 remain frozen in a limbo-like legal status, waiting to be adopted, destroyed, or (in three percent of cases) slated for research. Bush has promoted—fiscally and publicly—embryo banks and adoptions as alternatives to disposal. As of 2003, Snowflakes, a Christian “embryo adoption program” that openly discriminates against single women, gay couples, and non-Christians, had received $1 million in federal funding.
In 2001, Bush issued an executive order restricting research to the 21 existing stem cell lines still usable in the United States.
