Nearly a year after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist made his surprise endorsement of a bill to allow federally backed stem cell research, he has whittled down many obstacles to Senate passage, senators and aides said Thursday.
The Tennessee Republican, a potential presidential candidate and a physician, says research on cells derived from human embryos leftover from fertility treatments has vast potential to treat deadly diseases.
Many of his fellow anti-abortion conservatives, however, oppose the research because the embryos are destroyed. Frist has said he would like the Senate to vote as early as next month, although President Bush has vowed to veto it.
Senate battles looms
Despite the veto threat, the House approved a stem cell bill last year. Frist embraced the House bill but has not brought it to a Senate vote, in part because of objections from such conservatives as Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, also a doctor.
"I'm an obstacle," Coburn said recently. "I don't know if I'm the only obstacle but I'm an obstacle." His spokesman said on Thursday that Coburn had not changed his position.
Two other strongly anti-abortion Republican senators, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, say they will no longer block a Senate vote, even though both of them will vote against the House-passed bill.
Their changed stance allowed Frist to simplify his task. Instead of trying to strike a deal involving six complex bills on stem cells and cloning, he is now addressing a simpler three-bill package, two of which are less controversial than the House stem cell bill.
One would ban "fetal farming," or implantation of embryos into women for the purpose of harvesting cells or tissue. The other would promote more research into ways of using stem cells without destroying an embryo.
"I'm OK with a vote on the three bill package," Brownback said.
An aide to Santorum said, "The senator is not attempting to block consideration of (the House-passed embryonic stem cell bill) although he opposes the bill and expects the president to veto it."
