Stem cell roadblock.

Byline: The Register-Guard

President Bush will get a rare opportunity to correct a mistake when Congress sends him a new version of the stem cell research bill he vetoed last summer. He could sign the new legislation, but odds are overwhelming that he won't.

It's a shame that human suffering has such a hard time penetrating the rigid ideological defenses surrounding this White House. In addition to waving off pleas from patients with cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and spinal cord injuries, Bush also has ignored his own top scientists at the National Institutes of Health in exercising the only veto of his presi- dency.

Round 2 of the stem cell smackdown begins this week. The House of Representatives is expected to consider a stem cell bill today that's identical to one passed last July. It would lift Bush's restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. This time around, congressional vote counters predict the House will expand on its previous 238-194 margin in favor of increased stem cell funding, though many doubt Democratic leaders will secure the 52 additional votes needed to override Bush's expected veto.

The Senate, where a 63-37 vote in July was just four shy of a veto-proof majority, is expected to win more than enough new "yes" votes this time to override a veto. Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who long ago lost patience with Bush's shortsighted opposition to greater funding for embryonic stem cell research, said he was confident the bill would sail through the Senate with enough votes to thwart any veto.

The explosion of congressional support reflects a growing public consensus that the potential life-saving benefits of carefully designed embryonic stem cell studies outweigh the religious qualms some have about the destruction of human embryos. Bush based his veto on a personal religious conviction that human life begins at conception, and therefore, the destruction of a fertilized human embryo to extract stem cells is tantamount to murder. That belief is shared by some, but by no means all, of the president's devoutly religious, conservative base.

A number of the leading anti-abortion Republicans - including former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Orrin Hatch and Oregon's Gordon Smith - are just as adamant that it is a profoundly pro-life political position to fund research that could save countless lives by using discarded fertility clinic embryos.

Some supporters of embryonic stem cell research worry that the breakthrough announced this week on the promise of stem cells derived from amniotic fluid might muddy the water. But the author of the amniotic stem cell study urged Congress on Tuesday not to consider his work a substitute for continued research with embryonic stem cells.

Don't forget the significant safeguards Congress has built into the stem cell funding bill. The legislation requires that any federally funded research must use stem cells "derived from human embryos that have been donated from in vitro fertilization clinics, were created for the purposes of fertility treatment, and were in excess of the clinical need of the individuals seeking such treatment."

Also, through consultation with the donors, "It was determined that the embryos would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded" and "the individuals seeking fertility treatment donated the embryos with written informed consent and without receiving any financial or other inducements to make the donation."

A second Bush veto would be a cruel rebuke to millions of Americans who are hoping stem cell research will unlock potential life-saving treatments for debilitating diseases and injuries. It doesn't matter to these patients and their families whether the breakthroughs come from adult, amniotic or embryonic stem cells.

They, and the vast majority of the American people, simply want their president to set aside ideology and support the science.