The exercise in clarity in the Senate this week over easing restrictions on stem cell research is not just about politics. A presidential veto, announced before a vote Senate leaders knew would not be sufficient to override it, reinforces a false choice over what could be life-saving research.

The false choice is between advancing treatment or cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Parkinson’s, ALS, cancer or spinal cord damage and killing human embryos. White House spokesman Tony Snow said, “The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something living and making it dead for the purposes of scientific research.”

But, as many, including these pages, have pointed out during this debate, the embryos come from fertility clinics where they would be discarded – in Mr. Snow’s parlance, made dead – anyway. Neither the president nor congressional supporters of his position have moved to stop fertility clinics from this practice. Nor does the current restriction stop the research; it merely limits federal funding. The real question is whether the embryos will be destroyed without benefit to human life or with the possibility of benefit.

Add to this the fact the number of existing stem cell lines the president approved for federal support in 2001 – what he thought was somewhere near 80 – turned out to be closer to 20, and some of those were of suspect use.

Even with private funding and support from some states, some of the world’s foremost genetic researchers are being held back from what could be immensely important work. Meanwhile, researchers in other countries are moving ahead, sometimes under sus-pect ethical standards.

Sen. Bill Frist, a pro-life Republican and the Senate majority leader, supported the expansion of federal funding for this research, already passed in the House, because, as a surgeon, he hoped the embryos would “seed research that will save lives in the future.”

As a politician, he knew to leave no doubt over why federal funds are not going to this vital research.