Frist changes his mind in stem-cell debate

I turned on C-SPAN (yeah, that C-SPAN) this morning while eating breakfast and caught a bit of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R) speech to the Senate on his new stance stem stell research.

From the NY Times:

In a break with President Bush, the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, has decided to support a bill to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, a move that could push it closer to passage and force a confrontation with the White House, which is threatening to veto the measure.

Mr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who said last month that he did not back expanding financing "at this juncture," is expected to announce his decision Friday morning in a lengthy Senate speech. In it, he says that while he has reservations about altering Mr. Bush's four-year-old policy, which placed strict limits on taxpayer financing for the work, he supports the bill nonetheless.

"While human embryonic stem cell research is still at a very early stage, the limitations put in place in 2001 will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases," Mr. Frist says, according to a text of the speech provided by his office Thursday evening. "Therefore, I believe the president's policy should be modified."

Wow, maybe common sense and, dare I say, ethics beyond strict, almost-fanatical, positions do sometimes come out in national politics.