Pro-Lifers Sharpening Skills in Battle Against Stem Cell Research and Cloning

Pro-Lifers Sharpening Skills in Battle Against Stem Cell Research and Cloning
By Dave Andrusko

No battle in the fight for life is ever easy, but fewer contests are more difficult than combating proposals to fund embryonic stem cell research and cloning.

There are proposals aplenty to explicitly fund human cloning as well as others that "only" authorize the lethal harvesting of stem cells from human embryos. All come wrapped in sometimes sincere rhetoric about "helping" sick people and are promoted by profit seeking biotechnology firms which employ whole teams of lobbyists.

"If you thought the pro-abortion lobby has tons of money," said NRLC State Legislative Director Mary Balch, "you haven't seen anything yet. It seems as if the biotech companies bring unlimited resources to the table."

And while the sledding isn't getting any easier, pro-lifers are learning how to respond to this legislative juggernaut. "That is because pro-lifers are getting up to speed on an issue that is at one and the same time very complicated and very simple," Balch said.

Compounding the impact of the abundant money biotech firms have at their disposal is that proponents are able to tug on the heartstrings of legislators. Not up to speed on the science, they do not understand the fact that there have been no embryonic stem cell therapies that have worked in humans or that there are ethically acceptable alternatives to scavenging stem cells from embryos and/or cloning new life on which to experiment. Proven therapies involving adult stem cells are already helping patients and have for years.

"Put yourselves in the shoes of a typical committee chairman," Balch told NRL News. "Sincere parents testify that the 'only' way their child can be saved from a life of misery is for the state to explicitly legalize - - and fund - - research that uses a 'few cells' which would be 'thrown away' anyway.

"This is a extraordinarily compelling one-two punch, made even more powerful by the fact that it is based solely on hope, not medicine, and manages to avoid an honest discussion of the grave ethical issues at stake," Balch said.

"Never was the need for readily understandable, listener-friendly information more necessary than now," she said.

"Even legislators who should know better are overwhelmed by the testimony of parents of children with disabilities and diseases and overpowered by the long reach of biotech companies who bring in waves of lobbyists," Balch said.

Even some pro-life legislators get confused when proponents talk about a "few cells," she said, missing altogether that the discussion is about human embryos. Balch illustrated her point with a committee hearing in a western state that took place only a few weeks ago.

Because a bill funding stem cell research had come up unexpectedly, pro-life forces were blind-sided. A pro-life lobbyist heard about it at the last minute, quickly put together testimony, and went before the committee, which appeared ready to easily pass the proposal.

Proponents never once mentioned that living human beings would die. The pro-lifer "talked about stem cell research killing the smallest among us and the committee chair was clearly surprised," Balch said.

The chair asked the biotech representative if this were true, and "the man agreed it was and that the bill was no good UNLESS it did authorize extracting stem cells from human embryos," Balch said. The bill was tabled.

Different Proposals

There are several different kinds of bills making their way through legislatures. There is considerable overlap with several states having competing proposals.

To grease the skids, not infrequently, the bills are named after actor Christopher Reeve and former President Reagan. Reeve, paralyzed following a horseback riding accident, was a vocal supporter of embryonic stem cell research.

Some members of the late President's family have unfairly invoked his name to buttress their own support for such research. But as William P. Clark, a friend of Mr. Reagan who served in the first Reagan Administration, wrote in the New York Times, the late President frequently "spoke strongly against the denigration of innocent life." Clark added, "I have no doubt that he would have urged our nation to look to adult stem cell research - - which has yielded many clinical successes - - and away from the destruction of developing human lives, which has yielded none."

Proponents of bans on human cloning have introduced measures in seven states. Five states have bills that would underwrite human stem cell research.

Six states also have what pro-lifers call "clone-and-kill" legislation. Advocates want human embryos to be cloned, experimented on, and then discarded.

An additional obstacle is that advocates are having continued success pretending there are two kinds of cloning: "therapeutic" cloning and "reproductive" cloning. In fact, all cloning is reproductive - - a human embryo is created. The difference is the new human being is either implanted or experimented on and then discarded.

"But we are making some headway," Balch said. In Virginia there was a bill introduced to fund stem cell research. But thanks to diligent work by pro-life legislators, "The bill was amended to eliminate funding for embryonic stem cell research and it is now on the governor's desk," she said.

Pro-lifers are employing other creative techniques to thwart bad legislation.

"It's an uphill battle, no doubt about it," Balch said. "Over the past couple of years, there were times when we were sure a ban would fly through only to discover that cloning proponents had found a way to sideline legislation that enjoyed considerable support."

Looking to the future, what matters most is that pro-lifers are beginning to thoroughly understand the complexities and the nuances of the issue, she said.

"We've been able to more successfully do two things," Balch said. As illustrated by a recent hearing in Massachusetts, pro-lifers were able to bring in people with serious diseases who told legislators that they would never accept anything that started with the deaths of human embryos.

"And the other thing - - and this is very effective - - is to talk about all the people who have already benefited from stem cells that come from a person's own body, or from placentas or umbilical cords," Balch said. "Once people understand that there are here-and-now therapies that are morally unobjectionable, it dramatically changes the conversation."

Beginning of the End for Embryonic Stem Cell Research?