Published: February 21, 2006 11:20 pm         

Late President Ronald Reagan’s daughter caps ISU Speaker Series with passionate plea for stem cell research

Patti Davis, the daughter of the late President Ronald Reagan, spoke fervently Tuesday night to an audience at Tilson Hall about the ability of stem cell research to save lives.

The 2005-2006 Indiana State University Speaker Series wrapped up Tuesday night with Davis, whose father succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease in 2004.

Davis, 53, a writer and a vocal advocate for embryonic stem cell research, spoke about the final years of her father’s life, her work promoting stem cell research and her thoughts about the current White House administration.

Her most recent book, “The Long Goodbye,” is a chronicle of the decade from her father’s diagnosis in 1994 to his death in the summer of 2004. Ironically, during Reagan’s presidency and 11 years before his own diagnosis, he named November as National Alzheimer’s Disease Month to bring awareness to the disorder.

In “The Long Goodbye” (so named for her mother, Nancy Reagan’s, characterization of Alzheimer’s disease), Davis explores the progression of her father’s illness as well as her improved relationship with her family.

Davis, who during the 1980s publicly alienated herself from her father and his politics, said communicating with her family has been a learning curve for her.

“It’s the way in which you communicate things much more than what you’re communicating,” she said. “I hurt my father terribly back then, not because he was intolerant of my beliefs, but because of the way in which I was expressing myself; I was very strident and angry.”

After those “rocky years,” Davis says it was important for her to “get it right” as her father entered his final battle with Alzheimer’s.

Part of getting it right included embracing the ideas that Reagan taught her, she said.

“My faith is my father’s faith, that this world is not the only story there is,” she said. “I don’t think that death ends a relationship.”

Davis said throughout the ordeal, she and her mother, Nancy, often reminded each other that “his soul doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.”

Davis, along with her mother and brother, Ron Reagan, have become vocal advocates for legislation to allow stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cell research is currently not federally funded in the United States. Some medical researchers believe that stem cells, which retain the ability to change into other cell types, may be able to repair specific tissues or to grow organs. The potential implications and benefits would require years of intensive study.

Stem cell research has ignited debate over the ethical consequences. With the present state of technology, starting a stem cell ‘line’ requires the destruction of a human embryo. Some opponents of the research argue that this practice is a slippery slope to reproductive cloning, and many on religious grounds oppose the destruction of human embryos.

In discussing her hopes for stem cell research, Davis argued that the practice is being “rejected really because of politics.”

She also claimed the “one real tragedy” of the current political climate is that “religion has been used in the service of politics.” Davis also told the audience that, in her opinion, politics had become more important than compassion.

“Your faith is between you and God,” she told one audience member who addressed her during the final Q&A, “not between you and George Bush.”

In her comments to the audience assembled in the Tilson Hall auditorium, Davis recalled the comments of first lady Laura Bush upon the death of Reagan.

Bush offered her condolences to the Reagan family but refused to support stem cell research, saying it had not been proven to cure disease and that it would be unfair to give citizens false hope.

Davis told the audience she does not believe in false hope.

“There is only hope or the absence of hope … it would be an egregious error not to move forward with a new frontier of medicine,” she said.

Davis also bemoaned the interchanging of terms such as “cloning” with “stem cell research,” reminding the audience the two are not the same.

In an interview conducted earlier Tuesday afternoon, Davis said of her work with stem cell research, “The best I can do is to continue getting the word out, which my mother and brother are doing as well. People aren’t the problem; the current administration is the problem.”

Deb McKee can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or deb.mckee@tribstar.com.