Stem Cell Bill

Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review writes about the Democrats' recent actions in Congress.

Proponents of embryo-destroying research lost one of their favorite knee-jerk rhetorical points on Tuesday, as they succeeded in killing a bill that would have funded alternatives to embryo-destroying research. It’s hard to dismiss your opponents as “anti-science” when you’ve voted against it yourself.

The Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act was a great constructive opportunity for Congress. Early on Tuesday, a leading pro-life senator, Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum (who is in a tough reelection battle and could afford to be focusing on other things right now — like, oh, saving his political life), rattled off his record of commitment to stem-cell-research advocacy, none of it destructive. He talked about his attempt at finding a “middle ground” by sponsoring a bill to fund adult-stem-cell and other non-embryo-destroying research. This “alternatives” bill was even cosponsored by his Pennsylvania colleague Arlen Specter (who supports embryo research, abortion . . . very many things a Santorum never will). The bill, in both its House and its Senate version, was an embrace of research that is free of embryonic-stem-cell research’s unavoidable ethical baggage.