Watson Coleman: “This is one Senator who understands the value of life and has a hands-on approach. It is interesting. President…”

“This is one Senator who understands the value of life and has a hands-on approach. It is interesting. President Clinton's bioethics commission concluded, if we have some other alternatives, why wouldn't we use them? They concluded the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research. I believe what is happening is the science is moving faster than the politics, that we have today the opportunity through a number of processes to move forward with pluripotent stem cell research in ways that are less morally problematic, that don't cross a line, that don't cross the line that says we should not have Federal funding for the destruction of a human embryo. I know my colleagues and friends who support S. 5 quite often have talked about excess embryos that we have and that may not be used for any other purpose. I would ask them to ask these questions. I believe their intent is this narrow intent, but as you look at S. 5, the question raised is, is this the beginning of the production of embryos? If in fact this is the acceptable path to go, why wouldn't we produce embryos that would then get Federal funding to do the research? Is the use of these embryos only for the purpose of stem cell research? Where would we draw the line? Who draws that line? Why wouldn't we use this to study embryonic growth, cell patterns, a whole range of other things?”