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ILLINOIS: Stem Cell Research Amendment Fails To Clear The Illinois Senate Associated Press Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 SPRINGFIELD - A push to have Illinois endorse stem cell research, a subject full of promise but also snarled in ethical debates, failed Wednesday in the state Senate. The Senate rejected a key amendment to legislation that would offer state approval of embryonic stem cell research, which might help researchers find cures to cancer, spinal cord injuries and more. Critics say the measure would encourage researchers to create human embryos for the sole purpose of experimenting with them and then destroying them. The amendment would have forbidden human reproductive cloning - that is, cloning to create people - and was meant to alleviate fears that stem cell research could lead to cloning. But it would not have banned therapeutic cloning, which involves duplicating an embryo so stem cells can be removed from it. The Senate vote on the amendment was 28-28; it needed 30 to pass. There was no discussion. Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg, an Evanston Democrat, said the amendment was crucial to getting the bill through the Legislature, and he said he wouldn't seek a vote on the entire bill without it. He plans to lobby senators before trying again to add the amendment this spring. "Having a reproductive cloning ban really provided several swing senators with a greater level of comfort on this," Schoenberg said. Supporters of the bill say a state endorsement would draw more research dollars to the state because Illinois would be seen as a welcome place for scientists to conduct their research. "A lot of young scientists would like to go into stem cell biology but are not certain that they'll be able to receive the financial help to do their work," said John Kessler, chairman of neurology at Northwestern University Medical School. Some abortion opponents are against stem cell research because they don't want scientists to experiment on embryos. "Even if there is some great potential cure that could come from this, the fact that you would necessarily have to destroy human life to get that benefit we would oppose that," said Daniel McConchie, spokesman for the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, based in Bannockburn. Opponents also take issue with the bill because it would permit therapeutic cloning, which Mary Anne Hackett, president of the Illinois Right to Life Committee, says is wrong because it involves creating life by cloning and with the knowledge that it will be destroyed. Stem cells, which are found in human embryos, umbilical cords and placentas, can divide and become new cells in the body. Researchers are trying to get them to repair ailing hearts, livers, brains and other organs. Embryonic stem cells are believed to be capable of forming any cell in the body, and are obtained by destroying a human blastocyst, one of the earliest forms of the embryo. Scientists usually obtain them from embryos left over from infertility treatments, but they also have been taken from aborted fetuses. The legislation, approved last year by the Illinois House, is mostly symbolic because the type of stem cell research it endorses is already being conducted in Illinois. The bill would establish an institutional review board that would approve research. It also sets guidelines for couples going through in vitro fertilization who want to donate unused embryos for stem cell research. "It would put the things that we're doing in a legal framework," said Kessler, who has been researching stem cells for more than 12 years. SOURCE: Associated Press / Chicago Daily Herald Illinois News, May 13, 2004 http://www.dailyherald.com/news/illinois_story.asp?intID=3812077 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn