Press Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 18, 2006

U.S. Senate Votes to Fund the Destruction of Embryonic Children
Pro-Life Wisconsin Denounces Passage of H.R. 810

The United States Senate today disregarded the right to life of innocent human beings in passing House Resolution (H.R.) 810 on a bipartisan vote of 63-37. Wisconsin Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold voted for the bill. The deadly measure, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2005, would fully rescind President Bush’s federal funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. The President has repeatedly vowed to veto the bill.

“Embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of innocent human life,” said Matt Sande, legislative affairs director for Pro-Life Wisconsin. “From its conception, an embryo contains the entire genetic makeup of a human being. When an embryo’s inner stem cell mass is forcibly extracted to harvest its stem cells, it is necessarily killed. God bless President Bush for his courageous promise to veto this life-threatening bill.”

House Resolution 810 – the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 – would supersede current federal funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research by allowing federal funding of new embryonic stem cell lines derived from the destruction of new human embryos “donated” from in vitro fertilization clinics. President Bush’s embryonic stem cell executive order of August 2001 restricted federal research grants to the approximately seventy-eight existing human embryonic stem cell lines and prohibited federal funding of any new lines. In effect, the President said no to federal funding of the destruction of new human embryos.

“Senators Kohl and Feingold should be ashamed of themselves,” said Matt Sande. “Sacrificing human embryos – babies in their earliest stages of development – in the name of science is gravely immoral. Try as they might to convince themselves otherwise, Kohl and Feingold cannot avoid this stark reality. There are ethical lines that civilized societies cannot cross – killing babies for their stem cells is such a line,” said Sande.

Embryonic stem cells have never helped a human patient. In contrast, ethically unproblematic adult stem cell research has experienced documented clinical success over a wide range of health conditions: breast cancer, ovarian cancer, brain tumors, stroke, cardiac repair after heart attack, and corneal damage.

“The pro-life community is pro-stem cell research,” said Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “We want to see research progress toward the treatment of debilitating diseases, but not by killing life in order to potentially save it. Ethical and effective adult stem cell research is a life-saving alternative.”

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