Missouri voters: Amendment 2 IS pro-cloning; vote no!

[Sun]

To clone or not to clone? That’s the question. But it's not the question Missourians will be asked in November when they vote on Amendment 2. The question they will see in the voting booth is different from the actual language of the Constitutional Amendment.

When you see Amendment 2 at your polling place, you will be asked to decide whether to "ban human cloning or attempted cloning." Sounds good so far, right? Who's in favor of human cloning anyway?

But the 2,100-word Constitutional Amendment—which you won't see on election day—actually creates legal protection for human cloning. Hard to believe? It's true. Amendment 2 only outlaws reproductive cloning, which no one in Missouri (or anywhere else on earth) is doing.

Meanwhile, it protects anyone who wants to clone human beings for science experiments. Amendment 2 glosses over the issue of lab-created human life with complicated phrases like "Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer." But cloning is cloning, and Amendment 2 would put this ethically questionable practice beyond the reach of state law.

Amendment 2 is "2 tricky." And the human-cloning "bait and switch" is just the beginning.

[Sun]

Friday night, while Andrew Wilkow was subbing for Mark Levin, a caller from Missouri said that Missouri voters should vote against Amendment 2, because it IS pro-cloning, even though it doesn't say so on the ballet.

Everyone from Missouri, tell your friends, and/or call a talk show.

[msnimje]

Don't turn Missouri into the Clone Me State.

[Sun]

Thanks

[Sun]

I heard that the polls, sadly, show that more people will vote FOR this bill rather than against it. Please tell your friends the truth.

More info. here:

http://www.lifenews.com/bio1840.html

[william clark]

The stem-cell measure in California was similarly deceptive. The promotion of it was that "it doesn't allow cloning," but what the measure actually stated was that it didn't allow cloning "for reproductive purposes"; in other words, you can clone a human, as long as you kill it before it is considered a "person."

[TXBlair]

"the Clone Me State"

Cute. ;o)

I guess they'll change the capital to Jefferson Jefferson Jefferson Jefferson City.

[Sun]

'The stem-cell measure in California was similarly deceptive. The promotion of it was that "it doesn't allow cloning," but what the measure actually stated was that it didn't allow cloning "for reproductive purposes"; in other words, you can clone a human, as long as you kill it before it is considered a "person."'

I can remember at the time that even nurses who were for embryonic sc research (wrongly), went against the bill in CA when they realized it was a cloning bill.

In MO, I'm afraid a lot of good people are going to vote for this bill, because they just don't realize what it is.

[landeraepi]

I live in St. Louis, and today I was approached on the street by a couple of pharmacy students who handed me what they SAID was a copy of the actual amendment and told me to "read it before you go to the polls and vote on it."

So I get halfway down the first page, and I see:

(1) No person may clone or attempt to cone a human being;
(2) No human blastocyst may be produced by fertilization solely for the purpose of stem cell research;
(4) No person may ... purchase or sell human blastocysts or eggs for stem cell research or stem cell therapie and cures

The whole thing goes on like that. They've sunk to a new low... handing out FRAUDULENT copies of the bill. And the university PAYS for the copies, I'm sure — how convenient.

[Just another Joe]

Missouri ping

Low volume (normally) ping list

FReepmail me to be on, or off, this list.

[VOA]

So I get halfway down the first page, and I see:

While I'd never have the courage to do it...
it would have been interesting to follow them and start saying loudly:

"Where's the WHOLE text of this thing?
Why don't you tell about the part that really does allow for the
selling of eggs?
Why don't you tell folks the rest of the story? Like if you vote NO,
you'll be taking money out of the pocket of John Danforth's
brother, the biotech lawyer?"

[landeraepi]

Okay, now I'm confused.

FULL ACTUAL TEXT OF AMENDMENT 2 TO LEGALIZE CLONING

Apparently, that language is actually IN the amendment. Can someone please explain this to me? Why am I going to vote against this on Tuesday?

[VOA]

Missouri voters should vote against Amendment 2, because it IS
pro-cloning, even though it doesn't say so on the ballet.

If I hadn't accidentally seen a show on EWTN on the Missouri
Amendment 2, I wouldn't have realized what a mendacious piece of work
the "pro" campaign is.
That show had the best, most complete discussion I've seen in the media
(and I'm not a Catholic)

[landeraepi]

I just read the whole thing.

If I'm not mistaken, there is nothing actually "sneaky" or "dishonest" about this. I respect life as much anyone here and I wouldn't be caught dead voting for this amendment — BUT WHY AM I VOTING AGAINST IT?!

It really does outlaw human cloning. It really does prevent labs from paying women for their eggs. All of the provisions that people are talking about on this thread (women being paid for their eggs, human cloning outside of the womb) ARE ALREADY LEGAL AND BEING PRACTICED.

This amendment isn't legalizing those things.

Please, SOMEONE give me a good reason to vote no.

[VOA]

Compare these two passage (first one from section 1., the second from
section 2.):

---

(4) No person may, for valuable consideration, purchase or sell human blastocysts or eggs for stem cell research or stem cell therapies and cures.


(17) “Valuable consideration” means financial gain or advantage, but does not include reimbursement for reasonable costs incurred in connection with the removal, processing, disposal, preservation, quality control, storage, transfer, or donation of human eggs, sperm, or blastocysts, including lost wages of the donor. Valuable consideration also does not include the consideration paid to a donor of human eggs or sperm by a fertilization clinic or sperm bank, as well as any other consideration expressly allowed by federal law.

---

I suspect that the lawyers who wrote this probably built trapdoors so
that "donors" can't make $$$ off the egg trade, but hospitals, doctor
groups, i.e., institutions can.
In other words, when the egg trade becomes a thriving bidness...
nobody will get "valuable consideration"...they'll paid in terms of
"reimbursements".

[KC Burke]

If you read down in the bill it goes on to define terms:

(1) “Blastocyst” means a small mass of cells that results from cell division, caused either by fertilization or somatic cell nuclear transfer, that has not been implanted in a uterus.

(2) “Clone or attempt to clone a human being” means to implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy that could result in the creation of a human fetus, or the birth of a human being.

So you see, they can fertilize what they want and have a zygote or fetilized egg and so long as they grow it in a lab or factory and not a uterous it isn't their "re-defined" cloning.

Thhis way they gt around the cloning bans by redefining it and starting a new and "wonderful" industry.

Its sort of like that "marriage" word, it can mean whatever they want it to mean in the leftist world.

[VOA]

"Please, SOMEONE give me a good reason to vote no."

I lived in Los Angeles during 1995 to 2005. I now reside in Mid-Missouri.

If you vote for Amendment 2, you'll give the Missouri legislature the
green light to send millions of $$$ to MU, Wash U. labs for work on
cells that so far are just uncontrollable.
You'll just have a smaller-sized version of the taxpayer slush fund
being tapped in California.
And this money spent on ESCs won't go to work on adult stem cells that
do give viable treatments (and no rejection problems).

http://www.stemcellresearch.org

check the scoreboard on the right-hand side of the page.

In short, you can vote NO on 2 just in terms of fiscal responsibility
and pragmatism.

I'm not a Luddite on ESCs. They might be a miracle cure.
If they are such hot stuff, venture capitalists will pay to make them
into something useful.
And then folks won't have to spend $30 MILLION in order to convince people
to vote for ESC therapies.

[landeraepi]

I see the contradiction in the wording, and it does seem unnecessarily convoluted and twisted (thanks, lawyers!) but neither of these passages is LEGALIZING anything.

I don't know if you all realize this, but the "egg trade" — and financial gain from it — is ALREADY legal. This language is merely clarifying that it's not changing existing laws if it goes into effect. Hospitals, clinics, sperm banks — they all already have the right to do this. This amendment is saying that PEOPLE and CORPORATIONS (defined as people by the amendment) may not do it.

Are we the victims of a reverse-psychology campaign here?

[landeraepi]

I don't know if you realize this, but it's impossible for science (at least at this point) to clone a human being without a uterus. In order for a blastocyst to grow into a fetus, it MUST be implanted in a uterus.

Again, I see where the Dim-lawyers have made this overly complicated and convoluted, but it certainly does not legalize any of the things that I thought — and was told — it was legalizing.

If you understand biology on a high school level, this isn't difficult to figure out.

[landeraepi]

Thank you for that — and for screwing my head back on straight.

I will absolutely not vote in favor of this amendment, but I can not vote against it. I agree with your point about fiscal responsibility and pragmatism, but understand that this money is already SPENT. This isn't authorizing any new money at all (if it were, the bill would be a heck of a lot longer).

I'm no Neanderthal when it comes to science (I took a few courses in my day at Wash U.) and it seems like, while I hope the measure fails miserably, a lot of people are actually being misled into thinking that it LEGALIZES a whole lot of things it doesn't really legalize.

Next time, can we run a campaign saying "don't vote yes" instead of "vote no"? The result is the same either way — if it doesn't get enough support, it fails.