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Stem cell research could pass Senate this week
(The Leader www.illinoisleader.com) SPRINGFIELD -- State Senator Jeff Schoenberg plans to call the stem cell research bill for a vote on Wednesday, pro-family lobbyist Rev. Bob VandenBosch said on Tuesday.
If the Senate-amended bill passes this week in the Senate, it will return to the House for amendment consideration. If accepted, the bill would proceed to the Governor, who is expected to sign the bill into law.
"Two Democratic Senators said that Senator Schoenberg told them he was calling HB 3589, the embryonic stem cell research bill, for a vote on Wednesday," VandenBosch, director of Concerned Christian Americans, said today.
The Senate goes into session Wednesday afternoon, so VandenBosch urged the bill's opponents to call their senators and ask them to vote "no" on HB 3589 in the morning.
Schoenberg's bill will allow embryonic stem cell research, an experimentation offensive to those who believe life begins at conception.
Supporters of stem cell research argue that left over embryos not implanted from in vitro fertilization are being thrown away now. They say embryonic stem cell research would make good use of the tossed away embryos.
Another argument in defense of stem cell research is to fight diabetes Type 1. However, diabetes Type 1 has been successfully treated in clinical trials, despite stem cell research supporters' claims the experimentation is needed to fight juvenile diabetes.
This week, parents with children facing diseases that can be helped with stem cell research are lobbying state lawmakers.
In the Illinois House, Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) has a family member fighting diabetes. He is one of the stem cell research bill's most avid promoters.
But there are other ways to fight diabetes, opponents of the bill say.
Cell transplants from deceased donors have been successfully used for eleven out of fifteen patients who received adult pancreatic cell transplants called the Edmonton procedure, VandenBosch said. The June 19 2001 Medical Post reported that success in fighting the disease from a ten center multinational trial of the procedure is advancing.
Stem cell research is currently happening in Illinois. Associated Press reported last week that Chicago's Reproductive Genetics Institute helped create five healthy babies so that they could serve as stem-cell donors for the babies' physically debilitated brothers and sisters.
The "made-to-order" infants were screened and selected when they were still embryos to make sure they would be compatible donors for their older brothers and sisters. Their siblings suffered from leukemia or a rare and potentially lethal anemia.
HB 3589 would open the way for more experimentation with embryos and led to other ethically questionable practices.
"The new and improved HB 3589 states researchers would get taxpayer funding for dissecting clones in labs but prison terms for implanting them in wombs," Jill Stanek, pro-life coordinator for Concerned Women for America wrote today in an IllinoisLeader.com column on the stem cell research.
Stanek said the whole debate is over money -- who will pay for the stem cell research. The current form of HB 3589 is identical to legislation just passed in New Jersey, which caused legislators to set aside $6.5 million in state funds to subsidize the research.
For more information and the action alert on this bill visit:
http://www.ifrl.org
Source: The Leader
Publish Date:May 11, 2004
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