The Unconscionable Claims of Michael J. Fox

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/10/the_unconscionable_claims_of_m.html

October 25, 2006
The Unconscionable Claims of Michael J. Fox
By Mary Davenport

The popular and appealing actor Michael J. Fox has taken to the airwaves in Senate battleground states Missouri, Maryland, and New Jersey with a highly misleading ad urging defeat of Republican Senatorial candidates opposing the use of taxpayer dollars to fund new embryonic stem cell line research. He states,

"Stem cell research offers hope to millions of Americans with diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.... But George Bush and Michael Steele would put limits on the most promising stem cell research."

Mr. Fox and his ads' sponsors are guilty of conflating embryonic stem cell research, which the GOP candidates and many Americans oppose for destroying a human life in the name of curing other people's diseases, with stem cell research in general, which includes adult stem cell research and umbilical cord blood stem cell research.

The only limits in question are on federal funding of new embryonic stem cell lines, requiring the sacrifice of new embryos. Private and state-funded research (California voters are spending six billion dollars borrowing money to fund this) is ongoing.

The implicit claim that research based on new embryos is "the most promising" is absurd, completely unsupported by the scientific literature, and an insult to voters, based as it is on the assumption that they are incapable of understanding the issue. Too stupid to tell the difference, is the elitist assumption underlying this campaign.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200610/NAT20061027a.html

Missouri Cloning 'Ban' Misleading, Group Says
By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
October 27, 2006

EXCERPT

(CNSNews.com) - Anti-cloning organizers in Missouri are criticizing a proposed amendment to the state's constitution that they say would trick voters into supporting embryonic stem cell research under the guise of banning cloning.

The Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, more commonly called Amendment 2, states that "no person may clone or attempt to clone a human being," but several anti-cloning groups are urging residents of the state to vote against it.

The groups argue that while it appears to ban cloning, the amendment's definition of cloning is inaccurate and will in fact create a constitutional right to create human embryos for stem cell experimentation.

"It appears to ban human cloning when actually the fine print would put the right to do human cloning in the Missouri Constitution," Cathy Ruse, a spokeswoman for Missourians Against Human Cloning (MAHC), told Cybercast News Service .

Ruse said the amendment's definition of cloning, which will not be included in the summary of the amendment on ballots Nov. 7, "gives biotech firms the right to do somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which is the scientific term for cloning."

 

"On its website, the NIH (National Institutes of Health) defines somatic cell nuclear transfer as "the scientific term for cloning," saying it "can be used for therapeutic (medical) or reproductive purposes, but the initial stage that combines the enucleated egg and a somatic cell nucleus is the same."

 

"It appears to ban human cloning when actually the fine print would put the right to do human cloning in the Missouri Constitution," Cathy Ruse, a spokeswoman for Missourians Against Human Cloning (MAHC), told Cybercast News Service .

Ruse said the amendment's definition of cloning, which will not be included in the summary of the amendment on ballots Nov. 7, "gives biotech firms the right to do somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which is the scientific term for cloning."