Quotes from lawmakers and others weighing in on congressional debate over stem cell legislation:
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"The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He's one of them,"White House spokesman Tony Snow.
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"What this bill does is it allows people who are donors of embryos to allow those embryos to be used for life-giving research. So you either use these embryos for research that will help cure people of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's Disease, or you discard them,"Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
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"It is human, and it's alive, and under H.R. 810 we say that the federal government is going to fund the destruction, the killing, of that embryo,"Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.
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"I do not believe that a frozen embryo in a fertility clinic freezer constitutes human life. Now, I believe that being pro-life involves helping the living. Regenerative medicine is pro-life and pro-family,"Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
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"I strongly believe neither Congress nor independent researchers nor any human being for that matter should be allowed to, in effect, play God by determining that one life is inherently more valuable than another,"Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
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"I fear that without national standards and national legislation, this could be conducted outside of the public eye without national and international scrutiny, where dark and ghoulish things could occur,"Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.
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"I urge you not to make the first veto of your presidency one that turns America backwards on the path of scientific progress and limits the promise of medical miracles for generations to come,"California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a letter to President Bush.
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