Bush vetoes stem-cell funding

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President Bush yesterday vetoed the first bill of his presidency, rejecting an attempt to overturn his limits on federal support for embryonic-stem-cell research and criticizing opponents in Congress who blocked an alternative measure that would have funded nonembryonic-stem-cell research.

His veto was upheld hours later when the House failed to muster the votes to overturn it. The vote was 235-193, more than 50 votes short of the two-thirds margin the Constitution requires.

"If this bill would have become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos, and I'm not going to allow it," Mr. Bush said, drawing a standing ovation from supporters in the White House East Room.

He stood in front of a group of parents holding babies that they had adopted as frozen embryos and then had them carried to term.

"These boys and girls are not spare parts," Mr. Bush said. "They remind us that we all begin our lives as a small collection of cells. And they remind us that in our zeal for new treatments and cures, America must never abandon our fundamental morals."

The veto means Mr. Bush's 2001 policy remains in place. It allows federal funding for research on the stem-cell lines that existed at the time, of which there are 21 still usable, but prohibits federal funding for new lines, which require the embryos to be destroyed in the process of extracting the stem cells. Mr. Bush's policy does not prohibit private or state funding for stem-cell research.

Opponents say the existing stem-cell lines are too limited and are contaminated in some cases and argue that the embryos would otherwise have been discarded. Some estimates say there are 400,000 frozen embryos being held in clinics.

Mr. Bush had gone longer without a veto than any other president since Thomas Jefferson, even though he has issued 141 threats against bills during his more than five years in office.

To overturn a veto, supporters needed to secure two-thirds support in both the House and Senate. Since the bill failed in the House, no vote is needed in the Senate.

Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, called the House's vote to sustain the veto "a Luddite moment in American history, where fear triumphed over hope and ideology triumphed over science."