Parkinson's Disease Health Center

Bush Vetoes Embryonic Stem Cell Bill

States Fund Research continued...

Bush said he would not support the use of public money for studies harming what he sees as nascent humans. He delivered his speech while surrounded by children whose parents adopted them as embryos stored at fertilization clinics.

"American taxpayers would for the first time be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos," said Bush. "I will not allow it."

A decade-old law known as the Dickey Amendment already bans using federal money to destroy human embryos or fetuses. The bill passed by Congress and vetoed by the president would devote federal funding to research on cell lines created with private money.

"You listen to the president's speech and you wonder, 'Who was his science teacher?'" Harkin told reporters.

A bill increasing funding for alternative methods of stem cell extraction that do not harm embryos was expected to be on the president's desk along with the stem cell bill. It passed the Senate unanimously Tuesday afternoon but failed in the House.