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CNN Saturday Morning News

The Process Behind Bush's Decision on Stem Cells

Aired August 11, 2001 - 08:04   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Stem cell research has been a topic of intense public debate for several months and President Bush's decision on federal funding had been widely anticipated. "TIME" magazine has an article explaining the process and the time line behind that decision.

Writer Andrew Goldstein was one of the reporters on that story. He joins us now from New York. Hi, Andrew.

ANDREW GOLDSTEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: So are you surprised by the decision?

GOLDSTEIN: I actually was somewhat. When Karl Rove floated the idea of this kind of compromise over a month ago, most people dismissed it because they thought that it wasn't going to please either side. You end up, you know, disappointing Catholics and religious conservatives because we're still funding the destruction of human embryos, we're profiting from that, and you have scientists who say that it doesn't give us enough genetic diversity to really move forward.

PHILLIPS: How effective do you think his speech was for the people that were a bit confused, not quite sure which side they wanted to take? Do you think he convinced them to join his camp?

GOLDSTEIN: I think his speech was excellent, actually, and I mean there were some flash polls done right afterwards where, that showed that I guess 75 percent of the people who watched the speech ended up agreeing with his decision.

But more importantly, what he wanted to do in that speech was to appear presidential. This was his first address to the nation since his inauguration. And really how he ended up deciding or what he ended up deciding was not as important as being able to walk America in that 10 minute speech through his process and then say look, I am a thoughtful guy. I can do this job.

PHILLIPS: All right, there's two political battles I want to address. The first political battle specifically about politics. Where do you think the pressure will now come from? Will it be the Christian right politicians?

GOLDSTEIN: My guess is actually not. I mean there have been some people on the Christian right who have been upset by this. But most of them have actually been kind of relieved. They felt that, you know, if it was going to go in their direction, it would have happened a lot earlier. And so a lot of them were very, very worried that he was actually going to approve the Frist compromise, which would have been a much more extensive funding of stem cell research.

I think what's going to happen is scientists are going to have harder access to these cell lines, because most of them are under patents, they're in different countries. And if it turns out that this doesn't open the avenues for research that Bush says it will, then I think you're going to get a lot of pressure from the scientific community and from all of the patients groups that want to expand this a lot further.

PHILLIPS: You bring up a good point. That was my next question, these cell lines. Most of them are owned, the research, by private companies, right?

GOLDSTEIN: Right.

PHILLIPS: So how do you mix that with federal funding?

GOLDSTEIN: It's going to be, that's going to be the sticking issue right now. You know, most of these companies are private biotech companies that are out for making profits and they want to have the ability later on down the road when this eventually becomes cures to be the ones who profit from it. So many of them may be willing now, at first, to go ahead and let researchers play with what they've done. But the question is going to come later on, well, who actually owns these stem cells? Who should make the money? Who has royalties? It's very, very murky and I don't think...

PHILLIPS: I see the lawsuits, Andrew.

GOLDSTEIN: I know.

PHILLIPS: I see major lawsuits. Do you agree?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes. I mean it's going to be, and one, people who might be able to sue, how about the moms who gave up the eggs to allow those stem cell lines to exist? Do they have any rights when five years down the line or 20 years down the line suddenly there are cures that are making billions of dollars for these companies? Should they have any access to that money?

PHILLIPS: One quick question before we let you go, Andrew, the moral question here. I was reading Karen Hughes, the president's adviser said that he did not cross the moral line with this decision. Do you agree with that and what do you think this decision says about the morals of our president?

GOLDSTEIN: Well, you know, it's very fine parsing of language to say that he did not cross the moral line. I mean we, there's, he is now saying that well, he's not funding research that involves the further destruction of human embryos, but he is relying on research that involved the past destruction of human embryos. I don't know if you talk to most ethicists that they would say that that's really a legitimate ethical distinction.

It's working for Bush right now and I think he can actually make the argument but it's a very fine parsing. I'm not sure that it's going to really fly.

PHILLIPS: Andrew Goldstein, I enjoy your writing for "TIME" magazine. Thanks for being with us this morning.

GOLDSTEIN: Appreciate it.

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