 "Photo: Jon Lucas")
Activists, legislators and religious leaders met on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday to promote legislation aimed at protecting the legality of embryonic stem cell research by setting ethical guidelines for the practice.
House Bill 2704, bipartisan legislation filed on March 6, already has the support of 64 House members, according to Texans for the Advancement of Medical Research, an organization supporting of the bill.
Supporters of embryonic stem cell research stress the potential of embryonic stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease, diabetes and spinal cord injuries. Opponents believe that using embryonic stem cells involves the destruction of unborn human life and point to the potential of adult stem cells to achieve significant advances in medicine without taking human life.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stem cells have the potential to develop into many different cell types in the body, such as muscle cells, red blood cells or brain cells. Regenerative medicine is not limited to embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cells extracted from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and fat cells could also achieve significant medical advances.
Cheryl Travis, an advocate for Texans for the Advancement of Medical Research and member of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said the bill will advance and protect research using stem cells within a framework of ethical oversight by both public and private institutions.
The bill will also ban human cloning, placing a penalty of first-degree felony criminal charges and civil penalties of up to $10 million for each violation.
Margaret J. Sampson, an attorney with a doctorate in molecular biology, said there is reportedly a pool of approximately 400,000 unused blastocysts, or embryos of about 150 cells, potentially available for stem cell research. These blastocysts frequently are unused embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded.
"They'll ultimately be flushed down the drain. No one will ever implant them into a woman's uterus, and so that is really the pool that embryos ... would be drawn from," Sampson said.
Recent Gallup polling found 61 percent of Americans consider stem cell research using human embryos to be morally acceptable, while 30 percent say it is morally unacceptable.
Ben Weatherman, a project manager at National Instruments who is wheelchair bound following a car accident last year, attended the event to show support for the legislation.
"I get scared when these different entities, especially political entities, are trying to ban the critical stem cell research that we need to find cures for spinal cord injuries," Weatherman said. "Obviously that's my need, but my grandma has diabetes, my mom has multiple sclerosis, so there's lots of different facets there. I just want to make sure that we're not preventing those types of cures."
House Bill 2704 is authored by Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, and Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon.
Be the first to comment on this article!