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Dear List: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm afraid it will do no good to try to reason with Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas. He does not represent my district (thank heavens), but I tried many times to get him to support the Udall bill, without success. If you recall, a second "Parkinson's" bill was proposed at the last minute by certain right-wing Christian conservatives who have their own organization for "like-minded" members of Congress. This second PD bill was actually a fluke, restricting scientists and allocating much less money than Udall, plus no fetal tissue use or much of anything else. No PD organizations or groups supported it & they really couldn't get much attention for it. Anyway, he was all but rude to me, was totally uninterested in what anyone with PD thinks. At least I managed to get a letter printed in the Little Rock newspaper thanking all of Arkansas' members of Congress who supported Udall.... and listed their names AND the names of the two (Dickey was one) who did not. Thankfully, he is coming up for reelection and has some good competition this time around. A lot of people in Arkansas are tired of his self-serving attitude. I don't mean to offend anyone from Arkansas, but if you are on this list and have supported him in the past you need to know where he stands. BTW, when the final Udall vote was held he did vote for it........after 2 years of opposition.....but it was only for the sake of appearances. It doesn't surprise me at all that he would try to stick in the fetal tissue amendment at the last minute. I'm sure this was well planned by the "Christians in Congress" (I think that is the group's name but it's been so long, that I'm not sure.) I think we should be prepared for their opposition anytime the issue of fetal tissue or something similar arises. Rosemary Russell 51, 6yrs. ([log in to unmask]) Arkansas