WACO, Texas (AP) - After months of deliberations, President Bush will announce his decision Thursday night on whether to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Bush intends to disclose his decision in a nationally televised address to last eight to 10 minutes, administration spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Fleischer would not disclose the decision.

``The president wants to share the decision with the American people himself so they can see and hear why he came to the decision he came to,'' Fleischer said. ``He wants to share this directly with the American people.''

The setting for the address will be a house on Bush's ranch, where he is spending most of a monthlong working vacation.

The speech will be delivered at 9 p.m. EDT.

Bush has wrestled for months with whether to allow the funding. conferring with a list of experts on the scientific, ethical and religious implications of the research.

He has insisted that political considerations were not part of his deliberations. But his announcement is sure to please and disappoint crucial blocs of the electorate. For instance, Roman Catholic leaders, including Pope John Paul II, have strongly urged him to bar the funding.

On the other hand, such conservative Republicans as Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina have called for federal funding of such research because of the potential payoff in treatment of a number of diseases.

At issue is federal involvement in research on cells extracted from embryos that are left over from fertility treatments. While supporters of such research see great potential for medical breakthroughs, opponents insist it is wrong to use human embryos for research. In order to remove the stem cell, the embryo must be destroyed.

Stem cells essentially are blank cells - capable of developing into any of the body's organs but not into a complete individual. These cells form inside an embryo a few days after fertilization.

A National Institutes of Health proposal calls for federal funding of studies with embryonic stem cells that have been extracted by privately funded researchers. Bush has delayed such funding while the policy is reviewed.

By properly nurturing embryonic stem cells, experts say, they believe they can grow new cells to restore ailing organs in chronically ill patients. For instance, new insulin-producing cells could be grown to perhaps cure diabetes.

Some opponents of research into embryonic stem cells support instead the studying of somatic stem cells, which are made by mature tissue. But there is a debate over whether somatic stem cells are as flexible or as long-lived as embryonic stem cells. Many scientists advocate research on both types.

Although the president has avoided tipping his hand on his decision, his wife, Laura, said in a recent CNN interview that embryonic stem cell research could save lives and noted that leftover embryos from fertility treatments are destroyed anyway.

She also made a point noted by stem cell opponents - that researchers could simply use stem cells from adults, rather than from embryos. ``I mean, there is other research - other ways to get to the same kind of research,'' she said.