Bush vetoes stem-cell research bill; Democrats vow to keep issue alive

Washington- President Bush vetoed a bill that would have made it possible to expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

The veto was a knock to the Democratic-led Congress. Democrats, who had made the stem cell legislation a top priority when they took control of the House and Senate in January, were quick to denounce the president's decision.

DEMOCRATS

"This is just one example of how the president puts ideology before science, politics before the needs of our families, just one more example of how out of touch with reality he and his party have become," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, told the Take Back America conference of liberal activists.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, another Democratic presidential hopeful, said Bush was "deferring the hopes of millions of Americans who do not have the time to keep waiting for the cure that may save or extend lives."

Democrats said they would hold votes to try to override the veto - or at least give the issue more air time.

REPUBLICANS

Republican presidential hopefuls are split on the issue. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have broken with Bush - and the GOP's social conservatives - in backing the expansion of federal funding for such research.

WHITE HOUSE

To blunt criticism, Bush issued an executive order directing the Health and Human Services Department to promote research into cells that - like human embryonic stem cells - also hold the potential of regenerating into different types of cells that might be used to battle disease.

If the measure Bush vetoed had become law, the White House said it would have compelled taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos.

STEM CELL RESEARCH

Currently, states and private organizations are permitted to fund embryonic stem cell research, but federal support is limited to cell lines that existed as of Aug. 9, 2001. The latest bill was aimed at lifting that restriction.