Stem-cell stance divides GOP
Missouri's ballot initiative draws attention
By MATT STEARNS
Kansas City Star - Philadelphia Inquirer - Knight Ridder Wire Services
Washington Correspondent
"We can't win as long as we're negative on this issue."
Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership
WASHINGTON - Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri says stem-cell research is too important to be politicized. But Talent, along with Republicans nationwide, has found it may be too late for that.
Early stem-cell research has emerged as a political wedge issue for Democrats, who hope to ride Republican divisions on it to victory in the 2006 midterm elections.
Supporters of early stem-cell research, including many Republicans, say the science could lead to life-saving cures. Critics - including many members of the anti-abortion Republican base, who oppose the destruction of embryonic cells - say both abortion and early stem-cell research violate the sanctity of human life.
"It's going to be a question in every debate" in 2006, said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "And midterms are testing grounds for the next presidential election, for sure. For both parties, it could become a litmus test issue."
Missouri is at the spear's tip because of a ballot initiative that would prevent Missouri from enacting stricter laws than the federal government on such research. It is financed largely by Missouri business leaders, including many Republicans, who want the state to become a center of life science research.
Supporters include former Sen. Jack Danforth and Gov. Matt Blunt, both Republicans typically considered anti-abortion.
Talent, up for re-election this year and expecting a tight race against Democratic state Auditor Claire McCaskill, stunned Missouri's anti-abortion leaders earlier this month by renouncing his support for federal legislation that would ban all human cloning, including that used in early, or embryonic, stem-cell research.
He proposed increasing federal funding for an alternative type of early stem-cell research that he says renders ethical issues obsolete - a conclusion disputed by many in the anti-abortion movement.
"Flip-flop," fumed Larry Weber, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference.
Talent is not the only Republican politician whose base is unhappy with his stem-cell stand.
In July, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee announced his support of more federal funding for early stem-cell research, angering social conservatives even as he was moving toward a run for president.
In Maryland earlier this month, Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele compared early stem-cell research to the Holocaust, then apologized and said he supported the research but was "cautious of the science."
More GOP tap-dancing may be coming. The Senate is expected to vote this year on a bill that would loosen restrictions on federally funded early stem-cell research. Fourteen Republican senators joined 44 Democratic colleagues in writing a letter to President Bush asking him to lift those restrictions (Talent still supports them).
Whoever is elected president in 2008 will almost certainly have to revisit those restrictions if the bill passes and Bush vetoes it, as promised.
Socially conservative leaders in Iowa, a key early caucus state, say a potential candidate's stance on the research is "a very, very big issue," said Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center.
"To the point where when Frist changed and came out in favor of destructive embryonic stem-cell research, the talk among leaders . was that he had been written off as viable," Hurley said.
Among other potential Republican presidential candidates, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas has the clearest profile on the issue: He is the chief sponsor of the legislation from which Talent backed away. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska remains a co-sponsor of Brownback's bill.
Sharing Frist's stance: Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has said stem cells should not be created for research but that it's OK to do research on "surplus" cells that would otherwise be discarded. Sen. George Allen of Virginia supports the Bush restrictions and has said he would not support research that involves destruction of embryos.
Moderate Republicans say they are worried about the ramifications of the party's split.
Polls show about 80 percent of Americans support early stem-cell research, meaning the issue is ripe for Democratic exploitation, said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a moderate group that supports the research.
"We can't win as long as we're negative on this issue. . The base is not enough to elect a president," Resnick said.
Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, a leader among Republicans who support early stem-cell research, said he thinks anti-abortion leaders are overstating the base's opposition to the science.
"Pro-life polling is over 50 percent" on the research, Castle said. "They're not quite as adamantly opposed as some are in saying how adamant they are."
Hurley conceded that while anti-abortion leaders may view stem-cell research as a key issue, "some little old lady who sends $100 a year to Concerned Women for America of Iowa, I don't know if that's a deal breaker for her."
Questions facing Republicans include whether a compromise position such as Talent's will work on Election Day, and whether anti-abortion voters really will sit on their hands because of the issue, potentially allowing abortion-rights Democrats to win close races.
"I can't begin to tell you what will transpire in the coming months," said Patricia Skain, executive director of Missouri Right to Life.
Skain said her group was disappointed with Talent and that she has frequently not voted in elections in which neither candidate was, in her eyes, sufficiently anti-abortion.
Democrats have not faced the same problems on the issue. In recent years many voters who call themselves pro-life and view it as an overriding concern have voted Republican. The chief senators jockeying for the Democratic presidential nomination - Evan Bayh of Indiana, Hillary Clinton of New York, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts - are co-sponsoring the bill the Senate will vote on later this year.
McCaskill, Talent's Democratic opponent, supports early stem-cell research and opposes Bush's restrictions on federally funded study.
Democrats will continue to press the issue, said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
"It's something that's going to take on greater resonance, especially since Republicans are so divided over this issue," Singer said.
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TALENT'S STEM-CELL POSITION EXPLAINED
Somatic cell nuclear transfer vs. altered nuclear transfer
Sen. Jim Talent shifted positions earlier this month on early stem-cell research, causing an election-year political firestorm.
The Missouri Republican dropped his support of a bill that would ban human cloning, including what's called somatic cell nuclear transfer used in early stem-cell research. Opponents of the research say it destroys embryonic cells.
While reiterating his support for the legislation's basic goal, Talent said he feared its wording would also ban a process called altered nuclear transfer. Talent called for more federal funding for altered nuclear transfer, which he says could provide the medical benefits of somatic cell nuclear transfer without the ethical problems that concern critics.
The two paths to creating stem cells
Somatic cell nuclear transfer
Researchers take a human egg cell, remove its nucleus and replace it with the nucleus of an ordinary cell, such as a skin cell. With an electronic or chemical catalyst, the egg reprograms the nucleus taken from the skin cell, and it begins to divide like an egg newly fertilized by a sperm.
In a few days, it will grow into a ball of cells known as a blastocyst. Inside the blastocyst is a cell mass made up of "pluripotent" - or early - stem cells. That inner mass is then removed to generate a stem-cell line that researchers hope can be turned into replacement cells to cure diseases.
A blastocyst produced this way is fundamentally different from one created by the union of sperm and egg. A sexually produced blastocyst has about 25 genes that permit it to be implanted in a uterus and begin to develop into an embryo. In somatic cell nuclear transfer, the genes are not functioning, because the egg was not fertilized by sperm.
In addition, after the removal of the early stem cells, the blastocyst is incapable of further development.
Opponents say somatic cell nuclear transfer violates the sanctity of life because it creates and destroys a process that could lead to the development of a human embryo. They say that without safeguards, it could lead to cloning.
Supporters say altered nuclear transfer adds a step to the process that provides a better roadblock to potential cloning.
It uses the same basic technology as somatic cell nuclear transfer, with one key difference: The ordinary cell that is put into the egg cell is altered before being placed in the egg cell, so that from then on the process can never be manipulated to create a human clone. While the resulting blastocyst will still produce early stem cells, supporters say altered nuclear transfer is the only way to ensure no embryo is created.
Some who oppose somatic cell nuclear transfer say altered nuclear transfer meets their ethical standards. But others remain opposed because even in altered nuclear transfer, humans are interfering with the machinery of life, essentially crippling a cell to prevent it from becoming an embryo. And some scientists say that promoting it could undercut promising somatic cell nuclear transfer research.
Note: The above descriptions of somatic cell nuclear transfer and altered nuclear transfer defined using information from the University of Kansas Medical Center; the Stowers Institute, including the testimony of William Neaves before the Missouri legislature and an interview with Neaves; an interview with and a speech by Talent; an interview with and the writings of William Hurlbut, Stanford University bioethicist and member of the President's Council on Bioethics; Nature magazine; the writings of Carrie Gordon Earll, Focus on the Family specialist on stem-cell research; and an interview with Steven Teitelbaum, Washington University researcher.
