Tom Harkin: “the bill we just passed, S. 5, does everything that S. 30 does. That was already said in the debate the other day. S. 5…”

“the bill we just passed, S. 5, does everything that S. 30 does. That was already said in the debate the other day. S. 5 has already passed by an overwhelming vote. Everything that S. 5 does is in S. 30. So the next vote really doesn't make any difference one way or the other, because by passing S. 5, we allow to be done what is done in S. 30. Secondly, I have always taken the position that we should not tell scientists what to do and what not to do within the ethical guidelines we have established. What S. 30 says is: Go ahead and investigate. I don't know if using so-called dead embryos and extracting stem cells will work. I am not a scientist. But I don't want to handcuff the scientists and tell them they can't research it. As far as I am concerned, a vote for S. 30 is saying again what we committed to do in S. 5.”