Senator Tackles Cancer By Maintaining Grueling Schedule

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2005 — -- By the time Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., arrives at his office just after 8 a.m., he's played squash, read memos and made phone calls. He packs his days with news conferences, hearings and White House meetings.

Specter, who is battling Hodgkin's lymphoma, is in a race against time.

"If I don't push myself to the limit and I have some spare time and some spare thinking room, I start to think about myself," he said. "And I'd rather work than think about myself.

Some of his aides whisper that Specter should think about whether his frenetic pace is shortening his life. He brushes that off.

"Work," he said. "Stay at work. It'll be the best thing you can do."

Specter will soon chair grueling confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

The Supreme Court is just one of Specter's tasks. Right now, he is managing some of the biggest fights in Congress: the reporters' shield law, legislation to fund federal health programs, funding for public broadcasting and revisions to the Patriot Act.

One bill in particular is intensely personal. It would lift the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Not only could such research help others, says Specter, it might have helped him.

"They might well have found a prevention so that Arlen Specter didn't get Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer," he said.

Specter wants funding to extract stem cells from embryos that would otherwise be discarded at fertility clinics. Some of his fellow Republicans say the process destroys a potential life. Specter doesn't hesitate to respond.

"When you talk about life and death," he said, "I don't think you can mince any words."