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STEM CELL FILIBUSTER IS SHORT BUT FERVENT

Rumor had it that a certain pro-life Democrat was not going to stick with the 18 other state senators who had pledged to filibuster to death the bill to fund embryonic stem cell research.

Rumor was right.

After five hours of filibustering and two failed attempts by the bill’s proponents to “limit debate” on March 9, Sen. Roy Dyson, of St. Mary’s County, “flipped,” supplying the one vote needed to quash the filibuster.

Senate Bill 144 would pass the next day, though in a somewhat weakened form that its opponents hoped would render it irreconcilable to the corresponding bill that had already passed in the House of Delegates.

Leading the charge in the often-impassioned talk marathon was Senate Minority Whip Andy Harris.

In a spirited, often eloquent 90-minute address, he deplored the bill’s faults, challenged many claims by its sponsor, Sen. Paula Hollinger, and reminded his listeners of the undeniable humanity of the embryos that the legislation would help destroy.

Hollinger, chairman of the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, which approved and sent the bill to the floor for a final vote, said that the bill would give hope to many people who are suffering from diseases and injuries, and would keep Maryland in the forefront of scientific research.

“The federal government will not fund stem cell research,” said Hollinger.  “Now we are in competition with other states that are funding it; they are stealing some of our scientists from Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland.”

She claimed that the bill bans “human cloning” and that it would give in vitro fertility patients the option to donate their leftover embryos for research to save lives, rather than throw them “in the trash.”

“This is a bill about hope and it’s a bill about life,” she concluded.

Senator Harris, noting that “the question is not whether people can donate embryos – they can do that now,” said that “the only question is whether we can use state funding for stem cell research.”

Our current law does not ban embryonic stem cell research, said the Baltimore County Republican.  

“If the universities want to fund it right now, why aren’t they spending their own dollars?  

“The deans have tens of millions of dollars to fund any research they want.  Why are they coming to us and asking us to spend our constituents’ money?”

Harris, a member of the EHE Committee, said that the testimony of local biotech companies before the committee “was overwhelming:  please open the bill to adult stem cell and translational research.

“These companies think that adult stem cells yield faster and better results than embryonic stem cells.  I think that when taxpayers spend money, they want results.”

But amendments added supposedly to broaden the bill to include adult stem cell research would actually exclude it, he said.

The amendments define a stem cell as a human cell that can divide “indefinitely” and give rise to “many other types” of specialized cells.

Adult stem cells have neither of these qualities, said Harris, who is a physician.

“Under the wording of the amendments, only embryonic stem cell research need apply.  Adult stem cell research is clearly not eligible for funding.”

Harris also charged that the commission created by the bill to recommend which research would get funding “is stacked with individuals with an ax to grind; they want all the funding to go to embryonic stem cell research.”

Harris faulted a section of the bill that requires health care practitioners to inform in vitro fertility patients that they can donate their leftover embryos for research.

“We’re mandating that a provider has to do this; there’s no conscience clause.  I don’t think that’s right.”

He also derided amendments throughout the bill that replaced the term “human embryos” with “unused material.”

“If we mean ‘human embryo,’ why don’t we just say it?” he demanded.  “Why are we being intellectually dishonest?  Do we really want to send the message that a human embryo is unused material?”

Asking rhetorically, “What is the beauty of a human?” Harris compared a human at its earliest life stage to beautiful classical music.

The genius of a magnificent musical creation such as Beethoven’s 7th Symphony is “the musical notes, written on paper by the composer, that can be played only one way.

“Your chromosomes at the one-cell stage were a piece of music that can be played only one way,” unique from all other human beings and becoming something beautiful just like a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony, he said.

“The only thing that separates you from that one-cell form is the number of times you’ve divided and that you’ve been nurtured.

“This is not ‘unused material,’ ladies and gentlemen.  It’s a human embryo,” he asserted, adding that the amended wording is “sloppy at best, repulsive at worst, disrespectful in any way.”

Joining the filibuster, Sen. Norman Stone, a Baltimore County Democrat, said, “We are offering people hope, but I’m afraid it’s a false hope.  I have yet to hear of any successful treatment arising out of embryonic stem cells.”

Stone also disputed Senator Hollinger’s claim that the proposed bill banned human cloning.

“If that’s correct, why wasn’t my bill passed that simply banned human cloning?” he asked.

SB160, The Human Cloning Prohibition Act, was killed in committee.

Stone noted, in addition, that a letter of advice from Maryland’s Attorney General’s Office stated that both the Senate and House stem cell research bills do not prohibit therapeutic cloning.

Sen. Nancy Jacobs said that her mother, who died of Parkinson’s Disease four years ago, urged her not to give in on fighting against embryonic stem cell research.

“As much as Parkinson’s had affected her, she believed that the taking of a human life is wrong,” said the Harford County Republican.

Citing many recent news accounts, she said that the hope for treating Parkinson’s lies in adult stem cell research.

“If this bill were about adult stem cell research, everyone would be behind it,” she said, adding, “It scares me that people are following a political agenda with this bill.”

When the filibuster ended, several amendments were adopted, including one that struck certain language giving priority to embryonic stem cell research, one that added two commission members with religion-related expertise in biomedical ethics, and one that tightens up the wording defining human cloning but does not prohibit therapeutic cloning.

An amendment offered by Senator Harris to delete wording defining stem cells in a way that would restrict research to embryonic stem cells was vigorously opposed by Senator Hollinger and was defeated.

Final, impassioned pleas by pro-life senators on March 9 did not stop the passage of the bill by a 29-18 vote.