A Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Arkansas says he doesn't think he needs to apologize for comparing stem cell research to Nazi experiments on Jews during the Holocaust.
Curtis Coleman, one of eight Republicans running for the chance to challenge Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, on Thursday stood by his statement that embryonic stem cell research was similar to "what the Nazis did to the Jews."
"I'm not sure why an apology is needed," Coleman told radio host Thom Hartmann on his nationally syndicated show Thursday.
Coleman is the chief executive officer of Safe Foods Inc. in North Little Rock and managed former Gov. Mike Huckabee's unsuccessful 1992 Senate bid. He made the stem cell comment during an interview with a Little Rock television station earlier this week.
"Embryonic stem cell research is taking the concept of taking a life and using it to conduct experiments so we can temporarily extend somebody else's life," Coleman told KTHV in an interview this week. "Let me tell you what I just described. I just described what the Nazis did to the Jews in the death camps of World War II."
Coleman said he disagreed with Hartmann when the radio host called the comparison "horrific."
"Not at all. It's life at a different stage, but it's still life," Coleman said. "That's the point, it's still a human being. It's still a life. It hasn't fully developed, but it's still that human being and it's unique."
One of Coleman's rivals for the Senate nomination, state Sen. Kim Hendren, apologized last year for referring to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer's religion during a public appearance. But the Gravette Republican stopped short of admitting that he referred to the New York Democrat as "that Jew," as one conservative blogger reported.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele apologized when he was Maryland's lieutenant governor in 2006 for making a similar comparison between embryonic stem cell research and Nazi experiments.
Coleman has lagged in fundraising among the Republicans running for the Senate nomination, but has Huckabee's financial support. Although the one-time presidential hopeful hasn't endorsed Coleman, Huckabee held a fundraiser for him at his home last year and has donated money to his campaign.