Stem Cell Debate Covers Cloning Movement

It's been said that as California goes, so goes the nation.

It should be no surprise, then, that Missouri voters today are standing where California voters stood just two years ago: at the edge of a dangerous precipice.

In 2004, California was seduced by what seemed like a golden opportunity for the state to vault years ahead in medical science. Proposition 71, the so-called California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, promised to construct the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a $3 billion taxpayer-funded foundation dedicated to stem cell research.

As so often happens when the topic of stem cells is discussed, the initiative involved serious deceptions about the true nature of the "research" it was proposing. The voters of California passed Proposition 71 based on lies, and they will likely pay for it for years to come.

The parallels between Proposition 71 and Missouri's Amendment 2, on this year's ballot, are too clear to ignore the dangers. Missouri is poised to become the second step in a movement that threatens to take this nation down a dark path.

From its inception, Proposition 71 was based on a funding scheme of questionable constitutionality, authorizing use of taxpayer funds with virtually no oversight. Its proponents were able to obtain special permission to use the state's own legal counsel to write the proposition's "bulletproof" language. Several state officials now sit on the board of CIRM.

Amendment 2 does not follow the same money plan, however, with its language stating that "no state or local governmental body or official shall eliminate, reduce, deny, or withhold any public funds" for stem cell research, it does seem to mandate use of taxpayer dollars. The only oversight mentioned in the amendment would come from a committee of "representatives of the public and medical and scientific experts" - in other words, the same people who would benefit from Amendment 2.

What should be of more concern to the public, however, is that Amendment 2, like Proposition 71 before it, is about cloning, not finding cures from stem cells.

Like Proposition 71, Amendment 2 states upfront that it will not allow "cloning." It's a bald-faced lie covered by lawyerly "depends what the definition of 'is' is" type tactics.

The only cloning Amendment 2 would ban is "reproductive cloning," the sort that would implant an embryo in a surrogate mother and produce a baby. It hypocritically goes on to legalize creation of "blastocysts," which are early-stage human embryos, through "somatic cell nuclear transfer," the inserting of foreign DNA into a human egg.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer is cloning.

But by fudging the definition, Amendment 2 can both ban "cloning" and legalize it at the same time.

In this brand of research, once cells begin to divide, the embryo is harvested like a plant and its stem cells extracted, killing the embryo in the process.

Proponents say embryonic stem cells are coveted because of their "pluripotency," or ability to become any kind of human cell, a trait that supposedly could lead to treatments for any number of currently incurable diseases. But this too is a lie.

Embryonic stem cells have never been shown to produce anything useful. What they do produce is tumors and problems of tissue rejection similar to organ transplants. There is also concern about genetic instability.

Adult stem cells, which are obtained from adults and are not the subject of research under either Proposition 71 or Amendment 2, have been used successfully in treatments for heart attacks, cancers, blood diseases and infections. Research has also shown that adult stem cells may be just as versatile as embryonic stem cells, but without any of the medical or ethical problems.

Amendment 2 promises what Proposition 71 gave California: a quixotic, taxpayer-funded quest for a probably nonexistent treasure. Along the way, it will lay the groundwork for cloning and create an entire class of human beings, euphemistically branded "embryos," bred for medical research.

Tad Cronn is a writer from West Hills, Calif. His website is http://www.the-free-lance.com.