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American Morning

Capitol Hill Debates Stem Cell Research

Aired July 17, 2001 - 10:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Other news today, we go to Capitol Hill. Lawmakers are taking a closer look at stem cell research. At issue, should federal funds be used for studies? It's believed that such research could lead to major advances in treating a number of diseases, but there are also ethical issues to consider here.

Joining us with more is our Congressional correspondent Kate Snow -- Kate, good morning.

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

A House subcommittee later this afternoon will be holding a hearing about this very issue. The chairman of that subcommittee feels very strongly that embryonic stem cell research should not be supported by federal funding and so to bolster that argument, they've invited two families to come here and testify this morning. One of those families has twin nine month old boys. Now, they received frozen embryos through adoption, through an adoption agency, and those embryos were implanted in the mother and that's how they had those two nine month old boys.

They're going to argue to the committee that adoption is a better option for those embryos than using them for research.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUCINDA BORDEN, MOTHER OF EMBRYO TWINS: The world has been told, America's been told that these frozen embryos, these hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos out there are going to be thrown away so they should be donated to research, where they're also destroyed. And we want to let them know that no, there's families out here, there's like a million families who are just like us that would be willing to adopt them and give them the opportunity for life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: But proponents of embryonic stem cell research will tell you that there are simply too many embryos at fertility clinics and that not all of them would be able to be adopted. Scientists, many of them arguing that embryonic stem cell research provides valuable medical insight and they say they need the federal funding in order to make it happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEFFREY ROTHSTEIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: We have a lot more to learn before we're going to move the cells from our lab to truly curing patients and we need a large effort to do that and it won't happen with private funding alone. Private funding will help jump start this research, but only federal dollars. We have a long history in the United States of performing the best research in the world and it's been dependent upon federal funding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: Expect to hear a lot more from both sides later this afternoon at this hearing. And, by the way, it comes at a critical time, President Bush now considering whether to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research -- Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: Kate Snow on Capitol Hill, thank you.

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