http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/politics/06STEM.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=The debate over embryonic stem-cell research, which occupied President Bush during his early days in the White House, is re-emerging as an election issue as advocates for patients, including Nancy Reagan, press the president to loosen the limits on federal financing for the science.
Mrs. Reagan, whose husband, former President Ronald Reagan, suffers from Alzheimer's disease, has made her support for the research known but has never spoken publicly about it. She is expected to do so in Beverly Hills on Saturday night at a star-studded fund-raiser sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Embryonic stem-cell studies are controversial because they involve the destruction of human embryos; Mr. Bush's policy, announced in August 2001, restricts the research in a way that does not permit embryos to be destroyed with taxpayer dollars. But the diabetes foundation says the policy is impeding science. It has been sending patients to lobby lawmakers in Washington and has found some unlikely allies in Congress.
Last week, 206 members of the House, including some in the Republican leadership and nearly three dozen opponents of abortion, signed a letter urging Mr. Bush to allow the federal government to finance studies on embryos left over from in vitro fertilization clinics, which would otherwise be discarded.
Among those who signed is Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, a staunch opponent of abortion who has opposed such research in the past. Mr. Rohrabacher, who became the father of triplets last week, was at home and declined to be interviewed. His spokesman, Aaron Lewis, said that while the congressman "remains a pro-life member of Congress," he was persuaded by the patients' stories.
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