COMMENTARY

Experience affects stance in stem-cell debate

By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
April 26, 2009, 9:59PM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...o/6393913.html

AUSTIN — If you wonder why an anti-abortion Republican would oppose legislative limits on embryonic stem cell research, meet state Rep. Rick Hardcastle.

Yes, he’s a GOP lawmaker (from Vernon). Yes, he’s against abortion. But as a man with multiple sclerosis, and a father whose daughter died of cancer six years ago, he doesn’t want to see lawmakers put limits on potentially life-saving research.

“I am 100 percent for any of the science,” said Hardcastle, who hopes researchers can find an early way to detect the cancer that claimed his daughter.

His voice is gentle as he talks about his daughter, Cayce: “She was 18 when she died. She turned 18 on Monday and died on Friday” a half-dozen years ago.

Hardcastle’s name was the first mentioned when I asked another lawmaker why GOP House members didn’t want to vote on a budget amendment to ban state funding for embryonic stem-cell research, a provision pushed hard by some Republicans.