Stem Cell Research Enhancemet Act of 2005 - Veto Message from the President of the United States (H. Doc. No. 109-127)

STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2005--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 109-127)

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of sustaining the President's veto. This is not a vote for or against stem cell research. Many U.S. companies and universities are engaged in a great deal of embryonic stem cell research.

In fact, the President and the U.S. Congress have supported this research with over $90 million for embryonic stem cell lines derived from embryos that had already been destroyed with more than 700 shipments to researchers since 2001.

The question is whether to use federal money or U.S. taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos for research?

The research bears out that several types of stem cell research have been successful. These are adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood stem cells.

However, no research has shown embryonic stem cell research to be fruitful. A year ago when we debated this issue, a study at Seoul National University in Korea was brought up as an example of success to create the world's first embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo. Since then, we've learned that study was filled with erroneous data. The DNA studies on the two preserved stem cells did not match those from the published study and were not cloned human embryonic stem cells.

But, beyond this, we must keep in mind how we use human life and think about where we should draw the line.

Those who support destroying embryos for this research have stated these will be embryos that will be discarded. This is not true.

Many parents would love to adopt these embryos and raise these children as their own. According to the non-partisan RAND Corporation the ``vast majority'' or 88 percent of the 400,000 embryos that have been frozen since the late 1970s are not going to be discarded but are held for family building and not for medical research. In fact, over 21 families who visited the White House last year adopted these embryos in order to fulfill their own dreams of having a family.

Even to refer to these embryos as ones that are unwanted and will be destroyed raises the ultimate question: where do we and where will we draw the line?

If we say a human embryo is unwanted and discardable, we head down the road of asking ``what next?''

Do we view seriously disabled newborns as unwanted? Will it be acceptable to discard them?

This is a road down which we cannot afford to turn.

The research does not support it, morality does not condone it. U.S. taxpayer dollars must not support destroying a life to save a life.

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