Diana DeGette is a sixth-term Democratic congresswoman from Colorado’s first district, and the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House. Ever since her arrival in Congress, replacing the retiring Pat Schroeder in 1997, DeGette has focused her attention on abortion, reproductive issues, and — most prominently — the stem-cell debate. She is one of the chief sponsors of a bill to use tax dollars to encourage the ongoing destruction of human embryos for research. The measure, which would overturn President Bush’s stem-cell-funding policy, had the distinction of being the first bill vetoed by Bush and the only bill he has vetoed twice (in 2006, and in 2007).
In her new book, Sex, Science, and Stem Cells, DeGette seeks to relate the harrowing drama of her defense of abortion rights and advocacy of stem-cell research, and especially to describe, as she sees it, the great Republican assault on science in America.
As biography, the book is an interesting and at times even moving read. DeGette’s wonderfully American family story and her unusual rise through Colorado politics make for a good yarn, and her recollections of her daughter’s first diagnosis of juvenile diabetes offer both a loving picture of her family and an insight into the intense tenacity of her stem-cell advocacy. But these personal stories are quickly dispensed with in the book’s first few chapters, and with them go all of its strengths and charms. When she turns to substance, DeGette unleashes a dizzying mix of rank propaganda, factual inaccuracies, scientific distortions, personal venom, and embarrassing confusion. More importantly, she reveals an attitude that must leave us worried about the ability of the Democratic majority in Congress to govern on issues that touch upon science.
For anyone familiar with the subjects DeGette takes up, her gross and repeated factual misstatements must surely be the most peculiar feature of this most peculiar book. In areas in which she has been deeply involved for years, DeGette seems unaware of basic facts. She provides an almost comically erroneous description of the so-called “Dickey-Wicker Amendment,” which governs federal funding of embryo research. She wrongly claims that research on stem cells from aborted fetuses is not funded by federal dollars. She believes federal funds had supported embryo research before 2001 — when in fact President Bush’s policy provided funding for the first time, under ethical constraints. She speaks of “the 110 million Americans suffering from diseases who stood to gain from potential applications” of stem-cell science — asserting, it seems, that every third American is dying of a terrible illness. She imagines, too, that “there’s a general public consensus about the ethics of embryonic-stem-cell research in this country.”
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