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Two identical bills were introduced yesterday in the House and Senate that would expand federal funding and ease the restrictions on stem cell research imposed in 2001 by President Bush.
As the Washington Post‘s Rick Weiss writes today:
The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 represents the second major push in as many years to change the federal rules. Embryonic stem cells appear capable of rebuilding ailing organs but are mired in controversy because 5-day-old human embryos must be destroyed to retrieve them.
The bills represent the latest effort to break the moral and political stalemate over the practice. “The issue of stem cell research has polarized Congress, with insufficient majorities available to either loosen Bush’s restrictions or tighten them,” Weiss writes.
Outside of Washington, following the decision last November by California voters to approve $3 billion for stem-cell research in the state, pressure is mounting in state houses around the country to take the same step, according to a recent story by Ariana Eunjung Cha of the Post.
The intensity of that debate — by those who regard stem cells as holding out hope for medical miracles and by those who regard it as murder — was ably captured by the Boston Globe‘s Raphael Lewis, who covered a hearing of Massachusetts legislators yesterday.
Through eight hours of debate, the complicated contours of the stem cell issue unfolded before more than 100 people in the State House, where lawmakers are navigating a topic that not only involves powerful institutions such as Harvard University and the Roman Catholic Church, but also deeply personal pleas that in some cases touch upon their own experiences. Unlike many Beacon Hill hearings, yesterday’s session featured intense dialogue between witnesses and lawmakers struggling with moral, scientific, and ethical considerations.
Lewis deftly captures the emotion from all sides testifying, putting readers in the hearing room alongside their representatives who ultimately will have to take a vote. As a measure of the quandary they face, Lewis quotes Senator Mark C. Montigny: “We were not elected to be scientists, but we were elected to be custodians of the public trust.”
Given that stem-cell research is one of those hot-button subjects where emotion often overrides fact, the same task applies to journalists covering this issue. They’re not scientists, either. But they are custodians of the public trust (see Amendment, Fifth) — and if they drop that ball, they don’t deserve to be carrying it.
–Susan Q. Stranahan
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