mr. speaker , i would like to thank both the republican and democratic leadership for allowing this to take place here today .  sometimes there are issues of such critical social importance that it is only right that the congress of the united states do this in the open , and they did that and for that we should all be very appreciative .  i just want to leave my colleagues with some closing thoughts , perhaps some of the things i started with .  there are 110 million people just in the united states of america out of 290 million who have some sort of illness that potentially could be helped by the use of embryonic stem cells .  most of those will never be helped by the use of adult stem cells .  we know that anything other than just the use of adult stem cells in blood tissues has been experimental at best and probably will never work .  i would encourage everyone to use their conscience as they vote today , to think about their constituents at home .  we talk about life , and i do not necessarily want to get into that argument back and forth , but the bottom line is there are a lot of lives that are being foreshortened in the united states of america and across the world that perhaps could be lived out to their fullest if that opportunity was given to the individuals involved .  remember that this research is going on at the private sector level .  it is also going on at the state level .  it is even going on to a degree at the federal level .  there has been $ 60 million spent over 3 years on this research at the federal level , and about $ 625 million has been spent on adult stem cells at the federal level .  so the research is going on at the time .  our ethic standards in this bill , and if you read it , it is only 3 pages long , exceed any ethical standards that have ever existed before including what the president had before .  the national institutes of health said : `` human embryonic stem cells are thought to have much greater developmental potential than adult stem cells .  this means that embryonic stem cells may be pluripotent , that is , able to give rise to cells found in all tissues of the embryo except for germ cells rather than being merely multipotent , restricted to specific subpopulations of cell types , as adult stem cells are thought to be. '' that is where the science is .  you can argue all you want , but if you do any extensive reading on this , that is where the science is .  these are the stem cells which can make a difference , the embryonic stem cells .  there are discussions of dollars .  there are no dollars used directly in the destruction of embryos at an in vitro fertilization clinic .  there are dollars used in the research ultimately .  but let us look at that .  let us consider what that is all about .  at the end , when those who have created the embryo make the decision that they no longer need or want that particular embryo , the physician has to make a decision about what to do with it .  there are some options there .  not a lot of options .  one of them is to give that particular embryo up for adoption .  some people do not choose to do that .  there have only been fewer than 100 so far .  and i think that is wonderful .  i think that option should be offered .  some people may make other decisions , but basically it will be one of two decisions if this legislation passes .  one is to put it into hospital waste , warm it up to room temperature , thereby destroying it at that point and doing it that way , or to be giving it up for research .  and my judgment is if that is a decision , why are we not helping the 110 million people out there who need help , as opposed to allowing this to go to hospital waste because it will happen anyhow .  if you do not like that , you better go out and lobby against what they are doing in in vitro fertilization clinics , and i do not think that we want to do that .  there are about 400 , 000 of these embryos .  that is probably a low estimate today .  that is an estimate of about 3 years ago .  about 2 percent are given up a year .  that is 8 , 000 .  the numbers that are more limited than that are just wrong .  a lot of people now , if this passes , are going to be offered the opportunity to give up the embryo for research instead of hospital waste , and they are going to make that decision , and we will get the kind of work that we need .  i would just close by saying that 14 out of the 15 diseases that are most likely to kill people in the world are not ever going to be helped by adult stem cells .  we need to do this .  with your vote today you can provide hope to tens of millions of americans and many more around the world .  support h.r. 810 .  