mr. speaker , i thank the majority leader and my chairman for yielding me this time . 
i do rise in opposition to this bill today . 
the debate that we are about is expanding federal funding , not limiting research . 
there are no bona fide treatments available for embryonic stem cells . 
there is nothing in the laboratory , and there is certainly nothing in the clinics available to patients . 
honesty is an important part of this debate , and i am concerned that more than a promise has been offered to people who are suffering and the reality is that those potential treatments are much more limited than they have been portrayed . 
the president , i think , wisely put parameters , set boundaries around this type of research back in 2001 . 
let us not forget that private funding for stem cell research is available today . 
a couple who has an embryo developed in an ivf clinic is perfectly free to take that embryo to a lab at harvard or california and have a stem cell line developed . 
the reality is in a poll of my reproductive endocrinologists back home : that never comes up as an issue . 
but 22 cell lines are currently utilized . 
there are an additional 31 cell lines available , per dr . 
zerhouni 's testimony before our committee , that will be developed after the issue of animal growth medium becomes overcome . 
and there are two papers out this past week that indicate that that date may be quickly upon us . 
mr. speaker , i think it is important that we follow the money in this debate . 
the reality is if there are indeed a third of the population of the united states who would benefit from this research , i believe that the big biotech money would be jumping into this . 
we would not be able to keep them out . 
they would be buying patents and capturing cell lines for their future use . 
if there is one thing we learned in the last presidential election , it was that both major candidates asserted that life begins at conception , and we are talking about taking a life . 
remember that that inner cell mass that we are talking about that is taken at about 2 weeks of development , if we put that on a timeline of a human pregnancy , about 5 days later we are going to see a heartbeat on a sonogram . 
so , mr. speaker , this is what the debate is all about . 
i urge us to protect life and vote against this bill . 
