Kirk wants to protect stem cell research
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk said Thursday that he hopes Congress will act to protect federal funding for stem cell research, an unpopular position with some conservatives but one that could win him support from moderate voters in his bid for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat.
Kirk, a five-term congressman from Chicago's northern suburbs, is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation that would make into law an executive order Obama issued that abolished Bush-era restraints on stem cell research.
Obama issued the order in March 2009 to lift limits imposed by former President George W. Bush on taxpayer funding and on the number of embryonic stem cell lines researchers could use.
Many researchers believe stem cells hold the key to treating and curing a variety of diseases from diabetes to paralysis.
"To make sure that the United State leads in science, and especially in medical care, we have to lock in the protections for stem cell research," Kirk told researchers and patient advocates at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Medicine.
Kirk is locked in a tight Senate race against Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, whose campaign quickly lit into Kirk for supporting stem cell research but voting against Obama's health care overhaul.
"It must strike as strange and insulting to people with serious illnesses and disease to have Mark Kirk offer to be their champion," Giannoulias spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said in a statement. "The undeniable reality is that by voting against health insurance reform, Republican Congressman Mark Kirk voted to ensure the benefits of lifesaving stem-cell research would remain out of reach to millions of Americans."
Kirk voted against the health care overhaul along with all the other House Republicans. He also once pledged to lead a repeal of the landmark legislation, but has since appeared to back off that position while criticizing the taxes and Medicare cuts that will help fund it.
Giannoulias supports protecting stem cell research and the nation's new health care laws.
At Thursday's event, Kirk wasn't fazed at the possibility that he could alienate conservative voters by highlighting his long record of support for stem cell research.
"I am a fiscal conservative and a social moderate and so I seek to serve in the Senate the way I've served in the House," he said.
Opponents of stem cell research argue it destroys human embryos, although stem cells typically come from surplus at fertility clinics that would be destroyed anyway.
Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the conservative Family Research Council's legislative arm, accused Kirk of "trying to play to some sort of liberal base."
Kirk is running in a state where GOP candidates have had a hard time lately getting elected. Republicans hold no statewide offices in Illinois.