mr. speaker , twelve million baby boomers will have alzheimer 's .  three million baby boomers will suffer from parkinson 's disease .  juvenile diabetes , lou gehrig 's disease , spinal cord injuries will wreak havoc on the daily lives of millions of american families .  these diseases are going to bankrupt the health care system of our country unless we take action .  today , we can take dramatic action , a step , to deal with this looming crisis .  president bush has threatened to use his first veto to prevent scientists from using federal funds to search for these cures .  this is wrong .  stem cell research is the light of life , the way out of the darkness , the life-giving , life-enhancing , life-extending path to hope .  hope is the most important four-letter word in the language .  we must vote for hope , vote for life , vote for a brighter future for all of our loved ones .  vote for hope for a small girl forced to stick a needle three times a day into her young arm .  vote for hope for a beloved mother whose loss of balance leads to falls in the night .  vote for hope for a spouse who realizes that his memory of life and family are dissolving into a forgetful haze .  vote `` yes '' so that the next generation of children will have to turn to the history books to know that there ever was such a thing as juvenile diabetes or parkinson 's or alzheimer 's or any of these plagues that affect our nation today and are going to turn into a crisis in the next generation .  