With all of the hype and advertisement for and against Amendment 2, how do voters make an informed decision? The answer is simple: all voters should go online and first read the Amendment and then decide their position. http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/2006petitions/ppStemCell.asp

I am a medical professional. I have patients that I see every week, for treatment. Because of the frequency and duration of their treatments, I have developed personal relationships with my patients. I myself would love nothing more than to see research find a cure to help everybody suffering so, at first, I thought we would really have a great resource in the passage of Amendment 2.

I went online and read the Amendment in it’s entirety. After reading the “fine print” in the Amendment, I am now opposed to Amendment 2. Based upon the ballot summary that the voters will see at the polls, Amendment 2 would have the voters of Missouri thinking that this is our only “Hope” to find a cure. But it is not.
Read the Amendment! Amendment 2 merely gives the bio-tech industry carte blanche to redefine cloning for the purposes of this amendment, buy and sell human eggs, and create an embryo just to destroy the embryo with taxpayer dollars and, most importantly, without interference.

The ballot summary is grossly deceptive. Amendment 2 is five pages and 2,100 words long but, by Missouri law, voters will not see Amendment 2 when they go to the polls but rather a ballot summary. The ballot summary they will see in the voting booth is very different from the actual language of Amendment 2. The ballot summary contains language about human cloning but makes no mention that the Amendment allows, and actually protects, “Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer” (the scientific term for human embryo cloning) for the purpose of the Amendment.

OFFICIAL SUMMARY OF THE INITIATIVE
DRAFTED BY THE MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to allow and set limitations on stem cell research, therapies, and cures which will:

ensure Missouri patients have access to any therapies and cures, and allow Missouri researchers to conduct any research, permitted under federal law;
ban human cloning or attempted cloning;
require expert medical and public oversight and annual reports on the nature and purpose of stem cell research;
impose criminal and civil penalties for any violations; and
prohibit state or local governments from preventing or discouraging lawful stem cell research, therapies and cures”

Item one: Missouri patients already have the legal right and access to any and all therapies and cures, and Missouri researchers are already allowed to conduct any research permitted under federal law. Why was this even put in there? We aren’t getting anything new. This is already our legal right so this sentence is merely to distract you. If you vote no on this measure then perhaps you will feel as if you are voting no to giving Missourians access to therapy and cures. Perhaps it’s their way to shame you into voting yes.

Item two: for the purpose of this Amendment and ballot summary, they claim to ban human cloning or attempted cloning but they use an alternate definition of ‘cloning’ for their purposes. If you read page 1 of the amendment it only bans cloning that involves implanting cells within the womb but page 4 allows the bio-tech industry to clone human embryos through “Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer”. For those who not educated themselves, “somatic cell nuclear transfer” is simply cloning by a different name. The laboratory technique in question is somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) which creates cloned embryos, not just cloned cells. A cloned embryo is a complete organism and cells are defined as a subunits of an organism. The end result is still a production of cloned human embryos for use in research.

Item three: The Amendment reads: Each institution, hospital, other entity, or other person conducting human embryonic stem cell research in the state shall prepare an annual report. So the “oversight committee” will consist expert medical and public researchers policing themselves. Kind of like the fox guarding the hen house.

Item four: Violations of what? Interfering with research? Not complying the new definition of cloning assigned to this Amendment?

Item five: Amendment 2 specifically prohibits government from interfering with somatic cell nuclear transfer (the scientific term for human embryo cloning). In the Amendment, stem cell research means “any scientific or medical research involving stem cells”, aka somatic cell nuclear transfer aka cloning. This means your tax dollars will be used to fund human embryo cloning and no state, county or local government will have the right to say “No”.

The ballot summary fails to mention two other explosive provisions in the Amendment regarding the sale of human eggs, legal protections for researchers who create and destroy human life and the use of taxpayer dollars:

Buy and sell human eggs: the ballot summary claims to ban purchase and sale of human eggs but if you read the Amendment as it specifically provides for the purchase and sale of human eggs. Page 1 of the amendment says you can’t buy or sell human eggs but page 5 of the Amendment says firms can pay women for their eggs, which will be needed in the millions.

Create an embryo just to destroy the embryo: there is no guarantee the embryonic stem cells will cure any disease so, are we as a society, willing to create life just to destroy life for scientific research? Despite the confusion that some like to create on the questions of ‘are embryos human beings?’ and ‘when does a human life being?’ both scientists and physicians agree that human embryos are alive and human.
Embryonic stem cell research is already legal in Missouri. The creation of human embryos through in vitro fertilization, for research purposes, is not prohibited under federal law. Stem-cell researchers in the private sector produce and destroy embryos solely for research purposes all the time. The federal government provides funding for research on a number of stem cell lines and private funding is available for research that meet existing ethical standards as set by the National Institutes of Health. Missouri voters need to ask themselves “What are we being asked to vote for and why?”.

The proponents of Amendment 2 avoid mentioning the fact that embryonic stem cells are derived by destroying developing human embryos — whether cloned or otherwise. Instead, the campaign has coined the euphemism “early stem cell research” to avoid the word “embryonic,” and in one television as they tell Missourians that “Early stem cells come from a microscopic group of cells smaller than a period.” Cells from cells, and not an embryo in sight.

Because the ballot summary is grossly deceptive to Missouri voters, please educate yourselves first by going online to read the Amendment. My message to all Missourians: If you don’t know Amendment 2 then don’t vote on it. Skip it. But do NOT vote on something you have not educated yourself about.

I have reviewed the text to A2, and see NO section condoning, allowing, or endorsing cloning. As a matter of fact, it is one of the first points made: No one may clone, or attempt to clone. If you could show me otherwise, that would be great.

Second, you have to understand the process. SCNT takes cells from YOUR body and places them inside the egg, hopefully to produce more of the cell that was entered. For instance, a liver cell. They take Bob’s liver cell, insert it into the egg…10-12 days later, PRESTO! Bob has some liver material that can help him live. No cloning. If you have a problem with something like that, then you must have real issues. No one seems to bust an aneurysm when, after it has fallen off, the lizard grows his tail back. If we followed that theory then the lizard is A HELL BOUND HEATHEN DESTINED FOR THE FIERY PITS! LOL Seriously, half of you have never even read the Amendment! As I said, I am Ultra Conservative. Voted Bush twice. Still stand on the Red…but come on, it is counterproductive to vote no.