"culture of life" postponed until '06

It appears the Senate won't be able to get around to voting on the stem-cell issue until next year. Arlen Specter had threatened to attatch it to another bill but reneged because it would cause a "multifaceted controversy", then he also says:

"The majority leader (Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist) has agreed to make this a priority item at the beginning of the next session of Congress, where all facets of the issue may be explored," Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, told the chamber.

So it'll just be a multi-faceted controversy next year.

Back in May, the House told Bush they fart in his general direction and passed legislation that would expand federal funding of stem-cell research (though not by a veto-proof margin). As we know, Bush has stated he will veto any such measure that comes before him because he thinks it destroys embryos. That's not the case though, because with Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR), it is a zygote which is killed in the process of extracting its stem cells, not an embryo or fetus. It is, at that point, a mass of cells; they haven’t developed into bone, skin, heart, liver and any of the other 216 cell types in the human body. If cell individuation has already occurred, then they zygote would no longer have any usefulness in ESCR. But apparently, Bush doesn't know this and neither do the "culture of life" fanatics out there opposed to ESCR. Back in May, when the legislation passed, we got this lovely little gem from Shrub as well:

“We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life.”

Unless it's for a bullshit war for greed and power right?

(I've written previously on this issue, "take this slogan and shove it" [stem cell research] and "zygoterific" [Snowflakes/embryo adoption])