Taking it to the states

Medicine | With presidential veto, stem-cell battle is far from over | Lynde Langdon

ST. LOUIS—Republican senators returning to their home states for August recess face constituencies newly fractured over expanding public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. The issue—which drew the first veto of the Bush administration July 19—has fractured not only Republicans but even those conservatives elected with pro-life constituencies.

In Missouri, Republican Sen. Jim Talent is on the opposite side of the issue from Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, who supports research on cloned embryos as well as those left over from in vitro fertilization. Blunt broke family ranks by supporting the research, which his father, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), opposes. But the governor has the support of former Republican Sen. John Danforth, an embryonic stem-cell research advocate who is also an Episcopal priest. In the midst of such a tangle, the Republican governor finds himself on the same side of the issue as Talent's Democratic rival in his upcoming reelection bid, Claire McCaskill. Blunt narrowly defeated McCaskill in a gruesome gubernatorial race in 2004.