Claire Salamon asked me to post this:

 # 380 Monday, October 29, 2007 - WOMEN OF NEW JERSEY: TIME TO FIGHT!

On November 6th, women of New Jersey will fight to protect their children,
their families-and their own freedom-by voting to support the New Jersey
Stem Cell Research Bond Act:   WWW.NJFORHOPE.ORG

What do stem cells have to do with women's freedom?  You already know. Just
ask yourself one question: in a typical family, if someone is injured or
becomes ill, on whom does the extra work fall?

All too often-most of the time!-- it is the woman who gets stuck with the
chores of caregiving. It is not right.  But it is reality.

Now, if the illness is a temporary one, like a common cold or the flu, the
unfairness is temporary too. Everybody is a little extra careful around Mom,
short-tempered because she is working like two people, but in a few days
everything gets back to normal.

But what if the sickness or injury is chronic: an incurable condition?  Two
people's lives are crippled: the sufferer, and the caregiver.

Slavery is not too strong a word for what the permanent caregiver endures.
To have no life of your own, to become the limbs and body of the one you
love, to endure agonies of exhaustion, when the back burns with the constant
bending and lifting; when the mind goes half-crazy from interrupted sleep,
the endless getting up in the night to turn a loved one over in the bed
because they are paralyzed and cannot do it; the anguish of having to give
pain to a loved one because a catheter has to be inserted, or a gloved hand
must reach up into the intestinal tract, and it hurts them-and also there is
the secret shame and guilt of resenting him or her. and sometimes in our
darkest hours, we may even finding ourselves half-wishing he or she-- or we
ourselves-- would die, so the suffering could just stop.

But then the morning comes, and the caregiver gets up somehow, and goes on,
dragging herself from chore to chore for endless years, even as her own
health breaks down. It is not enough to say, oh, well, she married him, she
took the marriage vows. And it is never right to say, this is a woman's lot,
this is what a woman is expected to do!  Especially not when we may have it
in our power to end their suffering.
www.njforcure.org

The state of New Jersey has long been inspired by the courage of the Riccio
family, how every morning Patricia Riccio tells her paralyzed son Carl-"today
I am going to go out and find you a cure", and every day she works to make
that promise real. What if we could make it possible for Ms. Riccio to go
home, and say to her son: "Today is the day; today I found it."

And there is another New Jersey mother, somebody you may not know. Her name
is Kavitha Balakrishna and she was-is-a fully accredited medical doctor,
Kavitha went through medical school, fighting for grades as every med
student must, enduring the long sleepless nights, and exhaustion-and she
prevailed. She won-and she had started her career as a doctor, and was happy
in her useful work.

But then her child, a little boy, Pranav, 18 months old, was diagnosed with
Spinal Muscle Atrophy (SMA), a vicious disease which slowly saps the
strength of the child, taking away their physical abilities, weakening them,
until they can no longer breathe.  Kavitha gave up her career as a doctor.
Now, she now stays at home to care for her child. When he catches a cold,
she sits by his bed all night long, fighting to keep him alive. Pranav is
four now, and Kavitha sits there still. If you call her at her house, you
will always find her, never more than a few feet from her child's side.

She does this with a full heart, willingly putting her own life on hold --
but nobility does not lessen sacrifice.  So long as her child suffers, so
will Kavitha Balakrishna.

Maybe it is time we did something about it.  When November 6th rolls around,
the women of New Jersey have it in their power to strike a blow at this
unfairness: done to women all around the world.

WWW.NJFORHOPE.ORG

To vote YES! on the Stem Cell Research Bond Act is to strike a blow for
freedom from the endless prison of incurable illness-not only for our
suffering loved ones, but for their caregivers as well-a chance to make
somebody free.

 Women of New Jersey, if ever you wanted to fight against unfairness, now is
the time. Think it is too late, that cure will not come in time for you?
Then think of the girls now growing up, and fight for them. Do you want them
to endure what you went through, or maybe what you are going through right
now?

First, make sure, you yourself vote: Tuesday, November 6th.  If you need a
ride to the voting booths, contact your local Democratic headquarters-they
support the New Jersey Stem Cell Research Bond Act-and they will get you a
ride. If you can drive, you can do more: give friends and neighbors a ride
to the voting booths. Take your mom. Take your sister. Drag your husband and
your Uncle Fred and your Aunt Ethel. Get them to the voting booths.

This will be one of the closest elections in history-because the opponents
of the research are using the churches to spread misinformation and flat
lies about the research. We don't want to lose half a billion dollars in
research funding-- by five or six votes. You know the truth: stem cell
research is good and decent and deserves support.

We must get everybody we can to the polls, November 6th.  And, if you can,
chip in a couple bucks, right now. WWW.NJFORHOPE.ORG  Do it now before you
forget-give what you can, give more than you can-why ?  Because here is one
more great unfairness.  New Jersey is fighting this battle, alone, almost
with a zero campaign budget.

When California fought for Proposition 71, we had a budget. Bob Klein, the
leader of Proposition 71, made that possible, by doing what nobody else had
ever done. Bob Klein took his own money, the profits he had  made by working
hard for decades-and he gave it to the campaign to pass Proposition 71,
California's Stem Cells for Research and Cures Act. He personally donated
$3.1 million, and much more. He let the campaign work out of his own
offices. He let the campaign take over his life, which meant he lost money
because that took him away from his regular job-and he persuaded other
champions of charity to contribute.

 The result? The campaign had $30 million dollars. There was money for polls
and TV ads, money to get the message out, to combat the lies the opposition
spread. The truth became known-and California now spends $300 million a year
to advance the research.

Missouri? To protect the rights of researchers, a similar amount was raised
in the campaign to pass Amendment 2, due to the astonishing kindness of the
Stowers family.  But there are very few people like Bob Klein and Jim and
Virginia Stowers, who have both the ability and the willingness to give and
give and give.

So brace yourself. How much do you think New Jersey's campaign budget has,
to try and make possible $450 million in stem cell research spread over ten
years? One hundred thousand dollars.  That's right. That's all.    What
California did with thirty million, New Jersey must do with one-tenth of a
million. It isn't fair. But since when have women ever had it fair? Maybe it
is time to make a change.

WWW.NJFORHOPE.ORG

Don Reed
www.stemcellbattles.com

Rayilyn Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
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