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A message from His Excellency the Governor returning (pursuant to Part the Second, Chapter I, Section I, Article II of the Constitution of the Commonwealth) the engrossed Bill enhancing regenerative medicine in the Commonwealth (Senate, No. 2039), with his objections thereto in writing (received in the Office of the Clerk of the Senate on Friday, May 27, 2005 at ten minutes past twelve o'clock noon). |
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives:
Pursuant to Part the Second, Chapter I, Section I, Article II of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, I am returning unsigned Senate Bill No. 2039, “An Act Enhancing Regenerative Medicine in The Commonwealth.”
I cannot in good conscience allow this bill to become law. As a Commonwealth, we are bound together as a people united for the common good. The common good at stake in this debate is the preservation of the dignity of human life, and the laying of the groundwork for the advancements in the treatment of disease. Sadly, we have sacrificed the former in our hasty pursuit of the latter.
Like many people, I believe we should encourage medical discovery and seek out new cures, and there are many features of this bill that I support for those reasons. Research on adult and umbilical stem cells, as well as on surplus embryos created as part of an in vitro fertilization process if adoption is not an option, I believe all fall within appropriate ethical boundaries. However, it is wrong to allow science to take an assembly line approach to the production of human embryos, the creation of which will be rooted in experimentation and destruction.
I proposed amendments to the bill by letter dated May 12, 2005 that would have allowed stem cell research to proceed within acceptable ethical boundaries. These changes would have maintained the Commonwealth’s longstanding definition that life begins at conception; strengthened protections to prevent the exploitation of women; prohibited “embryo farming,” or the large scale cultivation of human embryos for research through conventional fertilization; and banned the cloning of new human embryos solely for the purpose of experimentation.
These changes were not adopted and I therefore return Senate Bill No. 2039 unsigned.
Respectfully submitted,
MITT ROMNEY,
Governor.