Senate Stem Cell Votes

S. 5, the bill to overturn President Bush’s embryonic stem cell funding policy passed, one vote (if everyone had showed up) short of a veto override margin. It also does not have enough votes in the House for an override, so it is not going to be enacted—for now. Eventually, when the Democrats decide they have gotten enough political hay out of the issue, they will attach it to a bill that the President cannot veto or which will make an override easier.

S. 30, the “alternatives” funding bill for deriving pluripotent stem cells without destroying nascent human life passed by 70-28. Since this is valid science and also uncontroversial from an ethical perspective, the Democrat opponents could fairly be labeled as “anti-science,” or at the very least, more than willing to put politics over the potential for advancing knowledge and the search for medical cures.