On May 24, 2005 the U.S. House of Representatives in effect voted to rewrite medical dictionaries and wrestle from trained, licensed, professional physicians the authority to differentiate between the living and the non-living.

     In a majority vote of 238 to 194, elected officials purporting to speak for their electorate concluded that House Resolution 810, Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of  2005, was a "good thing".  And after all, if employees of  "We, the people" can change even time twice a year, the mere redefining of established scientific terms should be easy.

     The center of the controversy for many Representatives and citizens who elected them is one word: zygote. On the Internet at:
          www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=6074
the MedicineNet.com medical dictionary defines zygote as:   "The cell formed by the union of a male sex cell ( a sperm) and a female sex cell (an ovum). The zygote develops into the embryo following the instruction encoded in its genetic material, the DNA. The unification of a sperm and an ovum to form a zygote constitutes fertilization".

     The point is repeated in that dictionary in the definition of the word fertilization:   "Fertilization is the process of combining the male gamete, or sperm, with the female gamete, or ovum. The product of this combination is a cell called a zygote.

     Another Internet source, Biology-Online, at:
          www.biology-online.org/dictionary/fertilization
defines fertilization as: "(Science: cell biology) The essential process in sexual reproduction, involving the union of two specialised haploid cells, the male and female gametes to give a diploid cell, the zygote, which then develops to form a new organism."

     Also on the Internet, The Genetics and Public Policy Center, tells us at:
          http://www.dnapolicy.org/genetics/basics.jhtml
near the bottom of the page under the heading, Fertilization and Embryogenesis, :  "Sexual reproduction involves the joining of gametes (egg and sperm) to form the first cell of a new individual, called the zygote."  [Note the mention of DNA misspelling in the fifth paragraph of that web page.] 

     Part of the debate is as follows. Federal money can be ethically spent to pull apart embryos in order to attempt to extract, or "harvest", the cells within the embryos that have not yet formed into cells of some specific body part. (This formation is called "differentiation". Stem cells are undifferentiated cells which the body can use at a future time to convert into cells for a body part.) Such a process is ethical, it is argued, because embryos are not persons, they are merely tissue matter, so they don't matter.

     This could be acceptable as "scientific truth" if words such as zygote and fertilization were redefined to fit the harvesting philosophy. As it stands at this moment, it seems that citizens and their Representatives who declare embryos (which are developed zygotes, which are "new individuals") to be non-living entities do not have a dictionary to stand on.

     A co-author of HR 810, Diana DeGette, D-CO, clarified the argument on May 24th by explaining that her bill would not pay Federal funds to rip apart embryos. The funds would be used to multiply stem cells taken from embryos after the embryos had been destroyed by lab workers paid from other money sources. Some opponents of her bill seemed to express the opinion that hers is a distinction without a difference.

     President George Bush has stated that he would veto the resolution if it passed the Congress. At this time there does not appear to be enough support in the House for a 2/3 vote needed to overcome a Presidential veto. However, there is a widespread effort by some politicians to rally ever-increasing numbers of USA citizens to the cause of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), with the expectation that those Americans would be contacting their Congresspersons who have not yet joined the ESCR wagon train.