Stem Cell Research

STEM CELL RESEARCH -- (Senate - July 18, 2006)

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Speaking on the minority side, I would like to say that we face a historic vote today on stem cell research. This is a vote that millions of Americans are watching. People who are suffering from diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, spinal cord injuries, they can't understand why America, for the last 5 years, has shut down medical research that promises hope--hope for cures. They can't understand that the President of the United States made the decision--almost unprecedented in our history--to close down medical research. He didn't do it absolutely, and that is the curious thing.

If this is a question of being driven by moral values, I don't understand how the President could conclude that using existing stem cell lines, 78 of them, is permissible, but using 1 more is immoral. I don't follow his logic. Frankly, I don't believe it is logical.

What we have before us is an opportunity to move forward on stem cell research with very strict ethical guidelines. We have a choice: Will we take these thousands of stem cells--which, frankly, will be discarded as waste and surplus--will we allow that to happen or use them in a laboratory to give a 12-year-old girl suffering from juvenile diabetes a chance for a normal, happy life?

Will we use these stem cells to try to explore possibilities for the epidemics of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease and finally have some avenue toward a cure? Are we going to tie our hands as a nation?

The Senate has a chance today to vote for the real bill: H.R. 810. That is the only bill dealing with stem cell research. There are two other bills we will be voting on, and honestly, they don't mean anything. They mean so little. One prohibits practices that are not occurring, and the other is just words--words that don't really lead to research.

What is really troubling is the President has sent us a message, and we received it yesterday. The President said, with his Statement of Administration Policy, if H.R. 810, the real stem cell research bill, were presented to the President, he would veto the bill. This President, who calls himself a compassionate conservative, has a chance with the stem cell research bill to show his compassion for the millions of people suffering from disease, people who are clinging to the possibility of hope in medical research. I hope the President will reconsider. I hope he will not just dig in and say: That's it, I won't even think about it.

I hope the President will pray on this because he is a prayerful man, and if he does, I hope he will understand that throwing away these stem cells, discarding them, declaring they are medical waste, is a waste of opportunity and a waste of hope.

We have a chance with this stem cell bill to give hope to people. I have gathered those in Chicago who are interested in the issue, and there are so many of them: Representatives of groups, a mother who wakes in the middle of the night two or three times to take a blood test on her little girl to see if she needs insulin; a couple sitting before me--I will never forget them--he is suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. He is in his thirties. He has reached the point now where he cannot speak or move. She brings him to our meeting, and as she describes what they have been through, tears are rolling down his cheeks, realizing he can't do anything to help himself at this point.

Well, there is a chance--a chance, perhaps, for him but certainly for others--a chance for them, for those suffering from Parkinson's.

My colleague from Illinois in the House, Lane Evans, is my buddy. We came to the House together in 1982. What a great guy. He is a Vietnam era Marine Corps veteran. He wins an upset victory in Illinois, comes in, he is a great Congressman, and then Parkinson's strikes. He had to announce this year he is ending his public career to continue this valiant battle against Parkinson's.

He said, when he came to the floor and spoke on behalf of this bill: This is not just about the right to life, it is the right to live, the right for him to live, the right for others to live.

I implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this bill today with a strong vote. Say to the President: Please, in prayerful reflection, think about these people who are counting on us. Think about our chance to show that we are not just compassionate conservatives and compassionate progressives and compassionate liberals, we are compassionate Americans.

I urge my colleagues to pass this bill, and I urge the President to reconsider his veto.

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