And no, I’m not talking about the “s” word. Anybody who thinks that President Bush is above profanity just doesn’t know anything about the man.

Besides, is there anything he doesn’t do like a drunken sailor??

No, it’s the “v” word — “veto” — that has me reaching for the soap.

The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed H.R. 810, The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, a measure that would allow expansion of Federally-funded embryonic stem cell research to include discarded frozen embryos left over from in vitro fertilization at fertility clinics. This is supported by some 70 percent of Americans.

We’re not talking about embryo farms, and we’re not talking about embryos-for-cash. We’re talking voluntarily donated leftover embryos.

But what about the “snowflake babies”, those embryos adopted and given life and loving families? There will be more of them, to be sure, but not so many that the cryogenic storage will ever be depleted.

And what is a donor to do but hope that her contribution to medical science might alleviate the suffering of others, might benefit generations yet unconceived!

Supporters of the President’s position are the very picture of hypocrisy. What moral outrage bans only public funding but permits private embryonic stem cell research? Why should we, the argument goes, have our taxes going to support research we deem immoral? And would somebody please explain why my taxes are funding the war in Iraq?

Fertility clinics are contradictory to God’s Will, if you really think about it. And so are hospitals and medicine itself. That is, unless you believe, as I do, in a God who has given us the tools and abilities to take care of ourselves and each other, to alleviate pain and suffering, to cure diseases that were created by neither man nor God.