mr. speaker , i yield myself the balance of my time .  mr. speaker , first of all , i want to thank the majority leader , the gentleman from texas ( mr. delay )  , for the tenor of the debate today and for granting extended time and making sure all points of view have been heard on this important issue .  although i am going to vote for castle/degette , i do not necessarily speak as an advocate for its passage as much as i want to speak about why i have decided to vote for it .  i respect members on both sides of this issue .  i made sure that members of the committee i chair , the committee on energy and commerce , regardless of their position , had an opportunity to speak and put their comments on the record .  i come at this as a 100 percent pro-life , lifetime , voting member of congress .  as i said earlier , this will be my second vote this year where i have not adopted the pro-life position .  so i am not quite 100 percent any more , but i would think that 99.8 percent over 21 years qualifies me as a pro-life congressman .  i have also voted numerous times for our defense bill , where we have voted hundreds of billions of dollars to defend our nation and put our young men and women at risk , some of them that might have to give up their lives .  i have voted for many bills for our law enforcement officials , where again they may have to give up their lives to protect the common good .  now , you might say , yes , but in those instances they were adults and they had free will and they voluntarily made a choice that they might have to sacrifice their lives .  well , i accept and support that an embryo is a life .  i agree with the gentleman from new jersey ( mr. ferguson )  that we were all embryos once .  i understand that .  and , obviously , at 7 days or 14 days , embryos do not have consciousness .  they do not have free will .  they do not have the neuro cells or brain cells to make a decision whether they want to voluntarily make a sacrifice .  i understand that .  but i would say this : if they did , out of the 400 , 000 that we think may be in existence , if you narrow that down to the 2.8 percent that the gentleman from texas ( mr. delay )  talked about that are probably not going to be used for reproductive purposes , if they did , would not some of them , knowing the stakes , volunteer ?  it only takes one , the right one , that magic silver bullet embryo that creates that magic stem cell that can be replicated into any of the 200 cell lines that make up the human body .  if i had that opportunity , might i not take advantage of it ?  somebody would .  and since they can not , because they do not have consciousness , under a traditional law in this united states of america we give custody to the parents .  a parent will make a decision at some point in time , or a family member will make a decision at some point in time that perhaps they do not want to put up for adoption , which is the decision i would make .  why not ?  in addition to the cord blood bill that we have just passed , why not make it possible for some of these under the conditions in the castle/degette bill for some to be used for research purposes .  it does not take many .  i respect those who say , no , you can not do it at all .  but i also say given a choice , let us err on the side of opportunity .  that is why i am going to vote `` yes . '' 