House votes to lift ban on stem cells

WASHINGTON — Setting up a showdown with the president, the House of Representatives voted Tuesday to lift the Bush administration's restrictions on medical research on human embryos.

The bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., would give federally funded researchers access to surplus embryos from fertility clinics as long as the donors give their consent. It passed 238-194 after a contentious floor debate between those who see embryonic stem cell research as the best hope for millions of suffering patients and those who see only the destruction of a human embryo for science.

The Senate is expected to pass a similar proposal. But President Bush, claiming the bill would encourage researchers to create life and then destroy it, has promised a veto.

Proponents have an uphill battle; overriding Bush's veto would require 290 votes in the House.

"There is more potential here than anything that has ever happened in the history of medicine," Castle said during the floor debate.

Stem cells are the body's building blocks, capable of developing into many different types of cells, including nerves, muscles and organs. Certain types of adult stem cells are already being used to treat diseases such as leukemia. Researchers hope someday to develop stem cell therapies that could regrow nerves in severed spines, replace the faulty insulin-producing cells that cause diabetes and reverse the effects of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Emotions ran high during the debate. Patients and families joined Castle for a pre-vote rally, sharing wrenching stories about loved ones who died while waiting for a cure or who live with the daily pain of disability.

"No parent should have to look at their child and tell them there are no more options," said Beth Westbrook of Pittsburgh, whose daughter, Katie, died one day after her 15th birthday, after exhausting every available treatment and experimental therapy for her bone cancer.

"I am running out of choices and out of time. I already take medications every 90 minutes . . . and even then sometimes I shake uncontrollably or cannot move at all," said Jackie Hunt Christensen, a mother of two from Minnesota who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease eight years ago. "I know that embryonic stem cells do not guarantee a cure for me or anyone else, but the research being done overseas looks promising."