FETAL TISSUE RESEARCH: Statement - 6/22/92 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: AVIS LAVELLE JUNE 22, 1992 (501)399-3840 CLINTON CALLS BUSH VETO OF "FETAL TISSUE" BILL "POLITICS -- PURE AND SIMPLE" Following is a statement by Governor Bill Clinton on President Bush's veto today of the 1992 National Institutes of Health Reauthorization Act: President Bush's refusal to sign this vital piece of legislation is politics -- pure and simple. He has turned what would have been a very important step forward in the fight to save the lives of millions of American women into an ugly bow to the far right. I urge Congress to override the President's veto. The President wants us to believe that vetoing this bill will discourage abortions. But this bill isn't about abortion: it's about freeing scientists to do the research that could prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of breast cancer, osteoporosis, and a host of other devastating illnesses that have destroyed and bankrupted thousands of American families: Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, sometimes fatal diabetes. This veto is classic Bush/Quayle. The President seems content to let Vice-President Quayle do the barking, while keeping the bite for himself. The simple fact is that there's no good scientific reason to maintain the fetal tissue research ban. Even the man who first called for the ban, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Health Human Services, Dr. Otis Bowen, believes the ban should be lifted. And some of Congress's strongest opponents of choice, including Senators Thurmond, Simpson and Hatfield, have joined in the major bi-partisan effort to pass the NIH Reauthorization and lift the ban. Let's be clear about this: this bill is the first major legislation that promotes research into breast cancer -- a disease that kills 45,000 American women every year. Hundreds of thousands of their children, husbands, and family members will share that loss. And the President's answer is to put the brakes on the only research that offers them hope, while offering an "alternative that the experts agree would do nothing. The Bush/Quayle team talks a lot about family values. But when it has a chance to do something, it proves that it really doesn't value families.