With Democrats now holding the reins of Congress, the new leadership has already begun work on a legislative agenda it hopes to pass in the first 100 hours.
Unfortunately, anti-life legislation will be one of the first bills out of the chute.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Thursday that four major bills will be introduced today for consideration next week. One of those will deal with expanding federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family Action, said House Democrats will push for a quick vote Thursday.
"(Incoming House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi said after the election she was going to make unrestricted funding of embryo-destructive research a number-one priority," she said. "They are being true to their word on this issue."
Dr. David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, said the new embryonic stem-cell bill is virtually identical to one that Congress passed last summer, which President Bush subsequently vetoed.
"What this bill would do," Prentice told CitizenLink, "is open up the current policy of the government and allow federal funds to be used (to extract stem cells from) any embryo. It would be fair game on any embryo out there, under this bill."
Earll said Democrats have a political motive behind their attempt to push the bill so far, so fast in the opening days of the 110th Congress.
"They know this is going to be vetoed by the president," she said, "and that it is going to set up a battle, if you will, between the president's policy and what some in the House want.
"The Democrats somehow have the idea that the election and their control of both houses of Congress gives them a mandate on destroying human embryos. That simply is not the case. It was not a major issue in most campaigns -- compared to other issues. They are really trying to make this more than it is."
Prentice, meanwhile, takes some comfort in the fact that the last Congress passed a bill to ban one of the worst possible outgrowths of expanded embryonic research -- "fetal farming," or the wholesale production of human embryos.
Still, there is plenty wrong with expanding federally backed research.
"What this really does is give an incentive to destroy embryos," he said. "If you've got the lure of federal funds out there, and the potential to make your own embryonic stem-cell lines and start reaping your own profits, you're going to see a rush to the fertility clinics, which will start taking thousands of embryos for destruction in research.
"Embryonic stem cells come from destroying human life, and they don't show potential for treating disease," Prentice added. Adult stem cells (drawn from sources such as umbilical cord blood) do not destroy life and are already treating patients now."
Indeed, adult stem-cell research has produced therapies and treatments for conditions ranging from spinal injuries to leukemia. Embryonic stem-cell research, which not only has failed to produce successful treatments of human beings for any condition, is immoral, Prentice said.
Earll said she hopes the newly constituted Congress will not have the votes needed to override a veto.
"The House vote last summer was 51 votes short of what was needed to override President Bush's veto," she said. "I think it is unlikely that they have picked up 51 votes. But you never know until people get on the floor -- you don't know what kind of lobbying is going on behind the scenes."
That's why it's important, she explained, for pro-life Americans to send a message to the new Congress, helping set the tone for future pro-life votes in the House, she said, and to some extent how aggressive anti-life forces will be.
"If pro-lifers make a good showing on this bill," Earll said, "it could go a long way helping with future votes, as well."
TAKE ACTION
Please call your U.S. representative and ask him or her to oppose any bill which uses your tax dollars to support research that destroys human embryos.
For help in contacting your lawmakers, please see the CitizenLink Action Center.
To help you understand the embryonic stem-cell issue, we recommend Dawn Vargo's article, "What the Media Won't Tell You about Embryonic Stem-Cell Research."
(Paid for by Focus on the Family Action)
