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Please, Mr. President, don't veto this vital bill Embryos are potential life, but not life itself GORDON SMITH Last week a senior White House aide suggested President Bush will likely veto legislation expanding federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. It would be unusually tragic if this became the president's first veto. In August 2001, Bush wisely allowed federal research to go forward on a limited number of stem cell lines. Since then, this research has continued to reveal the remarkable potential of stem cells to cure the most dreadful diseases and save human lives. But more stem cell lines are needed for this potential to be fully realized. The federal government has a moral and vital role to play in unlocking the secrets of diseases and disorders that have mystified scientists for years. Like President Bush, I am pro-life. Yet, apparently, we come to a different conclusion concerning stem cell research. While I respect this difference, my position comes from a belief that life begins in the womb -- with a mother -- not in a test tube -- with a scientist. It is within women that flesh and spirit combine to make a living human soul, I believe. Excess embryonic stem cells are created by fertility clinics, which endeavor to help infertile couples conceive children. The process is called in-vitro fertilization. I support this procedure even though additional embryos are being created and often discarded. But the question arises, are the embryos human life or potentially life? Are people being killed in this process? I don't believe so, because if those embryos remain in a petri dish for a thousand years, they will remain cells only, the dust of the Earth. No mother is present, no life has been created, no one has been killed. But medical promise and hope are being thrown away with the unused embryos. Unfortunately, only 22 of the 78 stem cell lines approved by President Bush remain, and many of those lines have been contaminated and rendered useless. But more than 400,000 frozen embryos exist in the United States and, through further research, may lead to cures for some of life's most malicious maladies -- Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and more. What could be more pro-life than that? Surely an "ethic of life" includes caring for the living. My position is informed by more than reason and the study of science and Scripture, but by history also, family history. My mother's name was Jessica Udall. Because of my maternal ancestry, I have been witness to the agonizing, dehumanizing deaths of my grandmother, an uncle and cousins, one of whom was Morris K. (Mo) Udall, former Arizona congressman and Democratic presidential candidate. Parkinson's disease was their killer. We will all die, but what I witnessed in the horror of their deaths, I wish to spare everyone, every family, all Oregonians and all Americans. I think I can by casting a "yes" vote of conscience for HR810 -- The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. The Senate debate begins Monday. Please, Mr. President, don't veto this bill. Such a veto, I fear, may only throw out hope, healing and human life along with the embryos. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, is chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Smith is a co-sponsor of the Senate's version of the House legislation, S471. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn