400,000 Frozen Embryos (128 Snowflakes - How it affects Pol Races)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13973858/site/newsweek/

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If this were a normal news time, the big story this week would be Bush’s veto of legislation to expand federally funded embryonic stem-cell research. Bush’s defiance on the issue has the potential of being as big a political gift for Democrats as the Massachusetts gay-marriage ruling was for Republicans in the last election. “The public clearly sides with science on this issue,” says Republican pollster Frank Luntz. But he adds that there are so many cutting-edge issues out there—Iraq, immigration, energy prices—that embryonic stem-cell research falls behind in comparison.

Sixty percent of Americans support this research (according to a recent Gallup review of polls on the subject), and when they see Bush holding up adoption as an alternative to scientific study, they know it’s a false choice. Most people understand intuitively that the overwhelming majority of embryos that are the byproduct of in vitro fertilization will not become babies, and real medical and scientific advances could be made if these embryos were available to scientists. Bush banned the media from watching him wield his veto pen, the first of his presidency; then he welcomed cameras as he explained his decision at a White House reception surrounded by “snowflake babies” and their grateful parents.

There are 400,000 embryos languishing in storage tanks at fertility clinics; only a very small number are candidates for adoption. “Even with federal funding available to encourage adoption, the number is 128, which makes it conclusive that these 400,000 embryos will either be used for scientific research or thrown away,” said Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who supports expanded research. The legislation, which passed by wide margins in the Republican-controlled House and Senate but fell short of a vetoproof two-thirds majority, would only use embryos that would otherwise be discarded, and then only with the written consent of the couple that created them.

The impact of the newly energized stem-cell debate is being felt in individual races. Pennsylvania Rep. Curt Weldon, a toe-the-line conservative, surprised everybody by voting to overturn Bush’s veto despite having voted against the legislation. His Democratic challenger, retired Navy vice admiral Joe Sestak, thanked him for his reversal, likening it to John Kerry’s famous campaign faux pas, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” In Weldon’s case, he voted against it before he voted for it. Weldon is best known for believing that the jury is still out on WMD in Iraq. First elected in 1986, this is his first tough race. The last four Democrats who ran against him collectively raised $78,000, chump change. Sestak has raised more than a million dollars, even outpacing Weldon in the last quarter in part because of some pretty slimy personal attacks by Weldon that backfired.