The Forward's Eve Kessler on the prospect that the Democrats might be able to reap big gains in response to the many Republicans (e.g., Michael Steele) with retrograde positions on embryonic stem cell research.
Democrats are seeking to make embryonic stem-cell research a key issue in the 2006 midterm elections, in a move that is underscoring the party's closeness with the Jewish community on so-called values questions.
This week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a strategy memo arguing that "stem-cell research could define '06 races." The memo noted that the GOP Senate candidates in Maryland and Missouri had taken positions on stem-cell research that "put them at odds with the electorates in their states" and that "2006 could bring [President] George Bush's first veto if a stem-cell funding bill — which is supported by several leading Republicans — passes Congress."
The issue exploded into public view last week when the Republican candidate for Senate in Maryland, Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, answered questions at a February 9 luncheon of the Baltimore Jewish Council. Steele caused a furor with remarks in which he seemingly compared research on embryonic stem cells to experiments conducted by Nazi doctors.
Coincidentally, the next day, Senator Jim Talent of Missouri, who is locked in a tough race with a Democratic opponent who supports stem-cell research, withdrew his support from a bill — sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican — that would have banned and criminalized all human cloning, including cloning for embryonic stem-cell research. The research is favored by one of Talent's prominent Jewish supporters. [. . .]
Like most Democrats, almost all mainstream Jewish organizations strongly support stem-cell research, which promises cures for many deadly degenerative diseases. All Jewish religious streams, including the Orthodox, hold that the cells have no special status outside the womb and so they can and should be used for such research. Israeli research arms, including Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center and Haifa's Rambam Medical Center, have emerged as world leaders in stem-cell research; Hadassah, the largest American Jewish organization, advocates for the research on Capitol Hill and in statehouses across the country.
Catholic authorities and many conservative Christian denominations, however, believe that fertilized human embryos constitute human beings and that using them for research is immoral and tantamount to killing. [ . . .] A conservative Catholic and former seminarian, Steele, who opposes abortion, apparently was unaware of Jewish support for the research when he made his remarks. [. . . ]
n Missouri, meanwhile, Talent faced a significant backlash from Christian conservative groups over his withdrawal of support for the Brownback bill, which the groups support as part of their "culture of life" agenda. One such group, the Family Research Council, sent an e-mail urging supporters to register their dismay with Talent's office, while anti-abortion activists castigated Talent for his "flip-flop," according to National Journal's political tip sheet, The Hotline.
According to news reports, Talent said he was withdrawing his support from the Brownback initiative in order to advance an alternative form of research called altered nuclear transfer, which he said made the Brownback bill unnecessary. A controversial and unproven method, altered nuclear transfer seeks to provide the benefits of stem-cell research without destroying embryos.
Some prominent Missouri Republicans, however, including Sam Fox — a top Talent supporter who is also the national chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition — are supporting an amendment to Missouri's constitution that would allow for stem-cell research not otherwise banned by federal law. Fox, a major supporter of Washington University in Saint Louis, which he said gets millions of dollars in research grants from the National Institutes of Health, supports the amendment and stem-cell research.
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