July 20 (Bloomberg) -- The day before Tuesday's U.S. Senate
vote backing embryonic stem-cell research, Republican Sam
Brownback appeared with several Snowflakes, the name given to
children born from frozen embryos. It was a lovely tableau, proof
of the wisdom of kissing every baby on the campaign trail.
With polls showing a large majority of Americans favoring
federal funds for such research, Snowflakes are the last redoubt
of a minority of a minority within the Republican Party adamantly
opposed to it.
President George W. Bush mounted a similar pageant at the
White House before a House vote in May 2005 to expand federal
funding, his little guests wearing T-shirts saying, ``This embryo
was not discarded.''
That's true for his T-shirt-wearing visitors and about 125
others born of ``adopted'' embryos, those left after couples
undergoing fertility treatments have had their children and no
longer need the extra embryos produced as backup. Yet they're a
fraction of those approximately 400,000 unimplanted specks --
with the feelings, soul and brains of a gnat -- at clinics across
the country that the Senate bill would rescue for research.
Bush yesterday exercised his first-ever veto to stop that
from happening, an action that spokesman Tony Snow explained was
motivated by a conviction that ``murder's wrong.''
No argument there. But if salvaging a few embryos to be used
in research is murder, what is the production of thousands of
embryos destined for destruction?"
Big Lies

Bush and Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, along with Brownback of Kansas, the most ardent exponent of Bush's view, would have us believe the extra embryos are lovingly and humanely kept in perpetuity. They know that isn't so, just as everyone knows their other claims are big lies: that the stem cell lines in use at the time of Bush's August 2001 decision to limit federal funding for research would be enough for scientists to proceed, and that adult stem cells are just as useful.

Bush ignores what is happening to embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. No politician wants to commit political suicide by taking on infertile yuppies. In fact, the president went out of his way to praise IVF in the speech announcing his policy in 2001.

I don't want the president to shut down fertility clinics because they're committing murder. I want him to open the door to stem-cell researchers because they aren't. I want him to acknowledge that my brain-damaged brother is as worthy as any infertile couple of being rescued by an embryo. Instead, he chooses to favor one over the other with no recognition of the contradiction.

Not the Money

It can't be that one uses federal funds and the other doesn't. Leaving aside that hospitals doing in vitro fertilization treatments get federal funds, and some insurance plans pay for it, if it's really murder we're talking about, the issue can't be who's paying for it.

Fertility treatments get a pass and always will, until that day when the photo-op of a grandmother with Alzheimer's can compete with the baby born of a frozen embryo, like the little one Santorum kept clutching in the anteroom of the Capitol on Tuesday.

Santorum fears slippery slopes. So, you moral ninny, the reasoning goes, you think embryonic stem-cell research is OK? Well what about pregnancies induced for research? What about cloning Dolly the Sheep? Britney Spears? Well, he didn't go there but his argument is so shaky, he might as well have.

Still Waiting

I called Santorum's office to find out if his fierce protection of embryos makes him want to regulate fertility clinics, especially now with Bush's charge of murder. I was told someone would get back to me. When I called again, I was promised an answer by 3 p.m. yesterday. I'm waiting.

The atmosphere on the Senate floor during the vote was strikingly congenial compared to three weeks ago when Republicans accused Democrats of ``cutting and running'' in Iraq. They're lucky that Democrats no longer recognize a winning issue when they have one and are happy to welcome them into the fold, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

As a physician and a prospective presidential candidate, Dr. Frist found himself on a political respirator after becoming the congressional doctor of record for Terri Schiavo, the brain- damaged Florida woman who was maintained on life-support against her husband's wishes. Frist finally broke with the president and returned to his original belief that embryonic stem-cell research holds the best hope for the medical breakthroughs that only occur with federal backing. It may not save his political life, but it may eventually save others.

Next Year

Senator Arlen Specter, a warrior for stem-cell research, spoke minutes before the vote. When challenged earlier by Brownback to say when life begins, Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he didn't know, but he said he didn't believe it started in a Petri dish. Specter -- his hair just returning after chemotherapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma -- said he was ``a lot more concerned at this point about when my life is going to end.''

At the White House yesterday, Bush again surrounded himself with Snowflakes as he vetoed the legislation. The House of Representatives failed to override his rejection of the bill last night, so the Senate won't bother to act.

The fight isn't over. Four Republican senators who voted with Bush -- Mike DeWine of Ohio, Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana and Santorum -- are in tough re-election races. If they all lose, Specter will have enough votes to override a Bush veto next year. Holding an hourglass with the sands of time running out as he spoke, Specter was a picture as compelling as any Snowflake. He'll get this done, if it's the death of him.