Democrats hope stem cell stance crosses party lines

By Jill Zuckman
Tribune national correspondent
Published October 24, 2006

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true

"Yes, it has an impact on you when your priest talks about this issue, but I think it has a much bigger impact on you if your grandmother has Alzheimer's," said McCaskill, the Missouri state auditor.

Her eyes brimmed with tears as she talked about Fox's struggle with Parkinson's and about her high school boyfriend who died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, a fatal neurological disease that attacks the nerve cells that control the muscles.....

.... "There are a lot of Republicans who feel strongly that these cells in a petri dish are the equivalent of a person, and there are other Republicans who feel that these cells in a dish not implanted in a mother are not the equivalent of a person," said former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), the influential senior statesman of Missouri politics and a leader in the fight for stem cell research.

Danforth's brother, Donald, died of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in 2001.....

ARTICLE: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true