Reject Amendment 2 Deception

By Dr. Robert Onder

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your descendents may live….” (Deut. 30:19)

Missourians are faced with a life and death choice this year on Election Day, November 7, 2006. This choice will have profound implications for the pro-life cause throughout our nation, as this choice will mean life or death for thousands or millions of our most defenseless brothers and sisters. Our choice is whether to amend the Missouri Constitution to create a legal right to kill human embryos, produced by cloning or by fertilization, for highly speculative research experiments. What happens here in Missouri is crucially important; the pro-cloning forces know that if they can fool Missouri voters into buying into their lies, they can convince voters anywhere.

Over the last several months in MetroVoice articles I have discussed different aspects of Amendment 2, (the clone and kill amendment). In my July article I looked at the numerous ways in which the so-called “Stem Cell Research and Cures” amendment is designed to deceive the public. This four-page amendment is deceptive from its first paragraph in which it claims “to ensure that Missouri patients have access to stem cell research, therapies and cures” and “that Missouri researchers can conduct stem cell research in this state.” The fact is that Missouri patients do have access to stem cell therapies and cures, and Missouri researchers can conduct any kind of stem cell research.

The true purpose of Amendment 2 is to prevent pro-life Missouri legislators from banning human cloning, especially cloning human embryos for research experiments. For the last several sessions of the Missouri General Assembly, pro-life legislators such as State Representative Jim Lembke and Senator Matt Bartle have filed bills that would have banned all cloning, both to make cloned babies and to make human embryos for research. Unfortunately some very powerful and wealth forces, particularly the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, want to do cloning research, and they have been successful at preventing votes on this legislation. These same forces grew tired of fighting anti-cloning bills year after year, so they decided to buy themselves a constitutional amendment. They expect to spend 20 to 30 million dollars on this effort and so far almost all of it coming from one couple, billionaires James and Virginia Stowers in Kansas City.

The problem for the cloners, however, is that pro-life Missouri voters would never knowingly approve a constitutional amendment to promote cloning research. Their solution was to package their pro-cloning amendment as a cloning ban! Amendment 2 therefore states in paragraph one that it bans human cloning, but in paragraph six it redefines cloning as transfer of a cloned embryo into a woman’s uterus. Amendment 2 explicitly protects cloning human embryos, which it calls somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Taken as a whole, the amendment creates a constitutional right to clone human embryos, so long as the researchers kill them.

There are many other problems with Amendment 2. Pro-life Americans deplore Roe v. Wade and its legalization of abortion, but at least, thanks to the Hyde Amendment, we are not required to pay for abortion. Not so with cloning, should Amendment 2 pass.

In a long and convoluted paragraph Amendment 2 states that state or local governments cannot “eliminate, reduce, deny or withhold any public funds … to a person that … lawfully conducts stem cell research…” In other words the amendment would make it extremely likely that Missouri taxpayers would be forced to fund research that they find morally deplorable. It is not surprising that the cloners would try to get their hands in the public coffers: biotechnology and venture capital firms generally have not pursued cloning or embryo research, but instead have invested in the more promising area of adult stem cell research. Lacking private interest in their immoral and speculative research, the cloners are trying to trick Missouri voters into paying for it.

Amendment 2 also contains a phony ban on exploiting women by paying them to “donate” their eggs. In my September Metro Voice article I discussed the hazards of egg “donation.” Many Missourians would be justifiably concerned that their sisters, daughters, or granddaughters might be exploited, and their health damaged, by these researchers. The body of the amendment therefore pretends to ban the practice of buying eggs by stating that researchers cannot pay “valuable consideration” (money) to women for their eggs, but goes on to define “valuable consideration” as not including payments made by “fertilization clinics” for women’s eggs. These are the very clinics that do the egg harvesting! Once again, the cloners seek to deceive Missouri voters.

Amendment 2 would also exempt cloning researchers from legislative regulation. It prohibits our legislature and our local governments from passing laws that “prevent, restrict, obstruct, or discourage” cloning or other embryo research. This is especially odd in human research, where regulation is usually very strict in order to protect human research subjects. But here the cloners seek a license to make and destroy as many human embryos as they want, without any regulation whatsoever. Again, the cloners are trying to deceive Missouri voters by hiding this language in a four-page amendment they assume most Missourians will never read.

Almost as disturbing as the amendment itself, the cloners have suggested that Amendment 2 opponents are irrational religious fanatics, motivated by narrow sectarian doctrines. One cloning proponent, Stowers CEO William Neaves, has suggested that we pro-lifers would have banned penicillin and blood transfusions. With such rhetoric they hope to intimidate people of faith into staying out of public debate on this issue. Is this, as Neaves and others contend, a “religious issue.” Certainly Christians and Jews know from Scripture that human life has inherent dignity because we are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26). We know that God knew us “before [we] were formed in our mother’s womb” (Jer. 1:4). At the same time, as Americans we affirm our tradition of “unalienable rights” including the right to life, forcefully enunciated in our Declaration of Independence. On the other hand, even very secularized countries like Germany, Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland have realized the moral wrong of human cloning research and have banned it. In all, six states and 27 countries with diverse religious traditions have enacted comprehensive bans on human cloning. It appears that it is the cloners, not pro-lifers, who are motivated by narrow, sectarian considerations – their own careers and financial interests.

Why are some researchers so obsessed with research cloning and embryo-destructive research? One answer is that many of these researchers would like to patent cloned embryo stem cell lines and profit from these patents. Another may be that cloning research opens up a whole brave new world of research: human genetic engineering, reproductive cloning, fetal farming (growing cloned babies to fetal stage and then harvesting organs), xenotransplantation, and human-animal hybrids. Cloners would undoubtedly argue that they oppose some or all of these “slippery slope” scenarios. Perhaps. But no one would have argued for research cloning just a few years ago, and today we have a billionaire trying to buy an amendment to write clone and kill research into Missouri’s Constitution.

What can we do to fight this deceptive and immoral amendment? I encourage all Missourians to oppose Amendment 2 in several ways: 1) Pray for wisdom for your fellow voters and those who lead the fight against this amendment, 2) Be sure you, your family, friends and your fellow church members are registered to vote and vote NO on Amendment 2, 3) Join Missourians Against Human Cloning, www.NoCloning.org, a coalition of Missourians organized to fight this amendment, 4) Spread the word to your family, friends, and fellow church members, and 5) donate your time, talent, and treasure to fight this amendment.

Missouri voters are indeed faced with a choice: life or death, blessing or curse. Will we accept the lie that progress in medical science requires killing the least of our brothers and sisters so that a few egoistic scientists can pursue highly speculative research? Or will we reaffirm the principles on which our nation was founded: that each one of us has an unalienable right to life? Stand up for life. Vote No on Amendment 2 on November 7th.

Dr. Robert Onder, M.D., J.D. is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. He is also on the board of directors for Missourians Against Human Cloning. For more information regarding Missourians Against Human Cloning visit their web site at www.nocloning.com.