Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and leading proponent of additional stem cell research, says if efforts to expand the research are scuttled by the president, the issue will rise again.

"We're going to keep pressing until we can ultimately win on it," Hatch told The Salt Lake Tribune, "because a lot of peoples' lives are at stake."

Bush and many Republicans in Congress oppose using taxpayer funds to research stem cells because they destroy embryos, and they consider the vote a moral battlefield similar to abortion.

"We shouldn't use a weaker person for the benefit of a stronger person," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, said during Monday's debate. Embryonic stem cell research is the "use of human life as raw material and if we do that, raw material we will be. And we cheapen life."

But Hatch, joined by leading scientists and a bipartisan group of colleagues, says that position doesn't hold water since the only embryos that will be destroyed are ones that are already discarded. Hatch says Bush is "wrong" about his position.

"There's no question about it, it's [eventually] going to pass and it's going to become law," Hatch said. "My regret is that it's not going to become law immediately . . . The more we put it off, the longer we delay, the more we're putting off helping people who need ."

Hatch is the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, though the chamber will be voting on the measure already passed by the House.

A poll commissioned by The Tribune last year showed that 53 percent of Utah adults back legislation expanding embryonic stem cell research, with about 35 percent disagreeing with the measure. Some 12 percent of those polled didn't have a position or declined to answer.

Congress passed, and the president signed, legislation in December to promote cord blood stem cell research, which is supported nearly unanimously among Republicans and Democrats. Today's vote carries much more controversy.

The White House on Monday defended its position and said more than $90 million in federal funding has been devoted to embryonic stem cell research. But the legislation before the Senate "involves the intentional destruction of living human embryos for the derivation of their cells," according to a Statement of Administrative Position that underlines a sentence promising a veto.

"Destroying nascent human life for research raises serious ethical problems, and many millions of Americans consider the practice immoral," the policy statement says.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said on the Senate floor Monday that if the president vetoes the bill, Congress should "resoundingly" override the veto because the American people want more research.

"We may be on the cusp of one of the greatest miracles in the history of medicine," Levin said. "The door is ajar awaiting for us to enter."

Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, a medical doctor by trade, also supports the expanded research and defended the legislation, noting that the measure prohibits study of stem cells that would be used for human implantation and allows only research on those that would be destroyed otherwise.

The Senate will also vote on two other stem cell-related bills today, and both are expected to pass. One bill, called Fetus Farming Prohibition Act, bans soliciting tissue from human fetuses for medical research. The other would require the National Institutes of Health to fund research methods to study embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryos.

Several Republicans said Monday during debate they support those two measures but cannot vote to expand more research than is already federally funded.

"It is wrong to take these sources of life and destroy them even if it is for a benign purpose such as medical research," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., who dismissed the argument that the embryos studied would be destroyed anyway.

"Just because the budding lives may not survive does not mean we should conduct ghoulish research on them."

tburr@sltrib.com

The debate over stem cells, in a nutshell

All cells in the human body "stem" from a basic master cell, called a "stem cell." Proponents of embryonic stem cell research want to greatly expand federally funded research of stem cells derived from embryos created in fertilization clinics.

President Bush in August 2001 banned federally funded research of any embryonic stem cells that were not existing at the time, but Congress is poised to lift that ban and allow continued study of the cells that supporters say hold the key to cures or treatments for a variety of maladies and diseases.

Opponents of the embryonic stem cell research argue the studies destroy human life, a position shared by Bush, who vows a veto if the Senate passes the bill today.

Those opponents also say that research on other stem cells, those from umbilical cord blood or bone marrow, hold the same or more research promise but do not destroy human life.

Supporters of the research counter that embryonic stem cells offer the best opportunity for study and that the only embryos destroyed are ones that will be discarded anyway.

What's expected?

The U.S. Senate likely will pass legislation today that would expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The House passed the measure last June. If the Senate approves, Bush is expected to use his first veto to overturn the legislation on Wednesday and the House may hold a veto override session that night. That chamber may not have the two-thirds of votes to override the veto.

What's expected?

The U.S. Senate likely will pass legislation today that would expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The House passed the measure last June. If the Senate approves, Bush is expected to use his first veto to overturn the legislation on Wednesday and the House may hold a veto override session that night. That chamber may not have the two-thirds votes to override the veto.