STEM CELL BATTLES
See that empty wheelchair? We who fight for embryonic stem cell research
believe that wheelchairs are for temporary occupancy only. We do not accept
the diagnosis of "incurable", given to more than one hundred million
Americans with cancer, paralysis, Alzheimer's, AIDS, diabetes, MS, and more.
We are America's millions: patients, family, and friends. We support
research to bring cures, to empty the wheelchairs everywhere.

 Friday, December 22, 2006  -  BARTLE AND LEMBKE: MEN WITHOUT SHAME


Senator Matt Bartle and Representative Jim Lembke are trying to criminalize
stem cell research: this time by overturning Missouri's Amendment 2,
approved by the voters of the "Show Me" State just six weeks ago.

Written because of earlier anti-research attacks from these two and their
ilk, Amendment 2 guarantees that federally-approved stem cell research will
be allowed in Missouri. That's all: research which America allows-will also
be legal in Missouri.

But what a campaign Missouri had to suffer through on that simple issue.

On the one side, patient advocates. On the other, the overwhelming power of
conservative religion.

I wish all the political contributions of religions were open to public
scrutiny.  When churches step into the political arena, they can no longer
call themselves non-political, and should not expect the benefits (like
being exempt from taxes) of separation of  church and state.

I would like to know, for instance, if it is true that the tobacco industry
gave money to the Church to help them turn out the ultra-conservative
votes-because there was a tobacco tax being considered on the same ballot.
Big Tobacco and the Catholic Church- purveyors of cancer and a Church
working together to block medical research-I hope it is not true. We'll
never know, probably, unless the Church reveals how much money it
spent-directly and indirectly-- on their campaign against the research. I
have heard, for instance, that the Church paid for 100,000 lawnsigns in St.
Louis, a city of 350,000-that's a lawnsign for every third house!

The ads the opposition paid for were new lows in political skullduggery.

Example: one advertisement had the actor who played Christ in Mel Gibson's
movie talking Aramaic to the viewers, as if Christ Himself would have been
against the research. (Personally, I believe the gentle Healer would have
been completely in favor of easing suffering and saving lives.)

Example: Jim and Virginia Stowers, cancer survivors and heroes to research,
were major supporters of Amendment 2. The couple had pledged to build a $300
million medical research center in Missouri-if it could allow the advanced
form of stem cell research called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.

But the opposition claimed the Stowers were supporting Amendment 2 to make a
buck. This is nonsensical. The Stowers are billionaires right now. They do
not need the money. Supporting medical research is in fact money out of
their pocket, a financial loss. But they believe in it.

Perhaps the lowest example: ads run by the opposition showed unborn babies
in the womb, clearly implying that plans were underway to experiment on
them.

A total lie. Stem cell research is cells, cells, nothing but cells-no babies
at all-except, perhaps, a child being healed, by the research Lembke and
Bartle would criminalize.

What is all the fuss about? Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), which they
call cloning.

Cloning means copying. Gardeners clone all the time when they do what
green-thumb folks do, planting cuttings.

The question is: what is being cloned? I do not mind if plants are cloned,
do you?

But the word clone, for most people, means copying people, like numerous
editions of Aunt Marge.

We can all agree on being against that. Trying to make babies by cloning
would put both mother and child at risk. No, no, absolutely not.  We can
make plenty people the old-fashioned way-it is easy, natural, and a whole
lot more fun.

Fortunately, human reproductive cloning, the copying of people, is illegal
in Missouri, thanks to Amendment 2, and should be against the law everywhere
in the world.

SCNT involves neither sperm nor implantation, and therefore cannot result in
a child. No womb, no baby. Implications to the contrary are false. The
opposition likes to say SCNT made Dolly-they conveniently forget to mention
the implantation in the sheep's uterus. Without implantation, there could
not have been a sheep named Dolly. No womb, no implantation, no pregnancy.

Take a look.

Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer means:

Put a skin cell into an egg, like a woman loses every month.
Shock gently with electricity, let sit in a dish of salt water five to seven
days.
Under a microscope, remove stem cells.

That's it. That is the whole process. No sperm, no womb, no implantation, no
child.

Now it is possible that the process could be abused.

Human reproductive cloning takes the skin cell plus egg and implants it in a
woman's womb. That would be an abuse-and get you thrown in jail ten years in
California.
Any tool can be abused, like taking a hammer and bonking someone on the head
with it. But should hammers be criminalized?

Bartle and Lembke apparently think so.

Fortunately, even the members of their own political party have had just
about enough from these two.

Governor Matt Blunt, conservative Republican:  "Voters passed Amendment 2,
which bans cloning, allows for responsible scientific research, and protects
patient access to new cures."-Kansas City Star, Kit Wagar, December 20,
2006.

Senator Chris Koster, R-Harrisonville said that he and other legislators
would "aggressively fight the proposed constitutional amendment" (because)
"To replay this fight over and over again is hurting the advancement of
science in Missouri, and it's time that it stop."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
Matt Franck, 12/20/2006

But when it comes right down to it, the most important person in this issue
is the patient.

Like Frances Dobelman, of Springfield, Missouri, who has diabetes and kidney
failure.

"They don't understand what stem-cell research will do for people in my
position," she said of the opposition.

 "It may be the way out for some of us".--News-Leader, December 20th, Linda
Leicht.

A way out from suffering.

But Bartle and Lembke are trying to block that avenue of relief.

They want to criminalize SCNT, which Amendment 2 was passed to protect.

What shameless disregard they show, for the will of the people they were
elected to serve.

By Don C. Reed, Chair, Californians for Cures, www.stemcellbattles.com.

Email Don at: [log in to unmask]

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