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The Promise and Politics of Stem Cell Research
Gail Pressberg, Pam Solo
Praeger Publishers
November 2006
On Sale: November 1, 2006
192 pages
ISBN: 0275990389
EAN: 9780275990381
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Ever since President George W. Bush limited federal funding
for stem cell research, the topic has been top of mind for
many, including the organized patient population
representing every major disease now afflicting
approximately 100 million Americans. In May 2005, the
president vowed to veto a compromise that 50 Republicans and
188 Democrats in the House of Representatives supported. The
compromise, if matched by a Senate measure, would have
repealed the 2001 limits on funding. Action at the federal
level remains stalled, but states have stepped into the void
to do what they can to support stem cell research. Only six
states have reinforced the federal ban, and 60 percent of
Democrats, 60 percent of independents, and 36 percent of
Republicans support lessening or eliminating the federal
restrictions on funding. As long as such restrictions remain
in place, the issue promises to be one of the most divisive
in any campaign season. How did scientific and medical
research on something smaller than a period at the end of a
sentence come to such prominence in American political life?
Embryonic stem cells are a cluster of about 150 cells that
form after the joining of an egg and a sperm. The stem cells
at the center of the cluster have the potential to become
specialized cells that could one day benefit millions of
Americans. Few areas of public policy have such far-reaching
implications. This fact alone accounts for the remarkable
level of information and sophistication by the broad general
public. Confounding the traditional polarized politics of
the country previously dominated by anti-abortion and
pro-choice politics, the politics of stem cell research may
be redrawing the contours of public life. New political
partnerships have been formed across party and ideological
lines. Unusual and remarkable collaborations between
scientists and patients have created a deeply informed
constituency as advocates for the research. Rarely has a
so-called cultural or value issue broken through the
reflexive ideologies of left and right, conservative and
liberal, as has the politics of stem cell research.
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