Why Bush's Ban Could Be Reversed

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What excites scientists about the unspecialized stem cells is their potential to develop into any type of tissue, from bone and muscle to skin and blood and nerve. Although there are several kinds of stem cells--including ones found in adult bone marrow and umbilical-cord blood--the most versatile, researchers say, are the ones that come from embryos, because they haven't yet developed enough to specialize at all. Those are the ones that scientists believe hold the greatest potential for treatment of a wide range of diseases, as well as for repairing damaged nerves and organs.

Backers of expanded stem-cell research say public opinion is swinging their way, thanks in no small part to such high-profile advocates as Nancy Reagan, who has made her late husband's struggle with Alzheimer's an emblem of the campaign for stem-cell research. Support is solid even among Republicans, says G.O.P. pollster David Winston, who conducted a poll released last week by New Models, a Republican communication research organization. Surveying 13 Republican congressional districts across the country, Winston found that voters in those areas favored embryonic-stem-cell research an overall 66% to 27%, while Republicans supported it 53% to 37%. This week backers of the bill will try to gin up additional momentum with the launch of a seven-figure television ad campaign.

It also helps that the legislation may be coming to a vote at a politically opportune time for a measure that can rightfully claim to be a truly bipartisan endeavor. Public approval of Congress in the latest Gallup poll stood at an abysmally low 35%, its worst in eight years. Congress hasn't helped its case much by tying itself up in battles, like the one over the filibuster, that touch the concerns mainly of those within the ideological extremes of both parties.

What brought the expansion of embryonic-stem-cell research to a congressional vote was not a public groundswell, however, but an uncharacteristically deft inside move by a group of Republican moderates who call themselves the House Tuesday Group. For months, they had been looking for an opportunity to get around the House's rigid procedures and force it to take up the measure, which probably could never have got to the floor through the usual process of committee deliberation. When House Speaker Dennis Hastert needed their votes in what turned out to be a squeaker on the budget last month, the lawmakers, led by Castle, extracted a guarantee that the Speaker would bring the stem-cell measure to a vote. That concession marked one of the few instances in which the tightly disciplined House leadership has agreed to allow consideration of a bill that it does not explicitly support. And yet, says Illinois Congressman Kirk, who was involved in the negotiations with the House leadership, "it was like pushing on an open door. In a lot of people's heart of hearts, they agree with us."