NRL News
Page 12
March 2008
Volume 35
Issue 3

Missouri Judge Rewrites Language of Cloning Ban Amendment
By Dave Andrusko

Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia S. Joyce has upheld a challenge to a ballot summary of a proposed constitutional amendment written by Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s office.

Judge Joyce ruled that Carnahan’s summary of the amendment was “insufficient and unfair.” Judge Joyce then rewrote portions of the summary.

Not unexpectedly, Carnahan’s office has appealed Judge Joyce’s February 20 decision.

Sponsored by “Cures Without Cloning,” the amendment would close the loophole in “Amendment 2,” which passed in 2006. Provided the group obtains a sufficient number of signatures, the amendment would appear on the ballot this November.

In a written statement Cures Without Cloning chairwoman Dr. Lori Buffa wrote, “This ruling proves what we’ve said all along: that our clear, concise initiative would prohibit human cloning and the taxpayer funding of human cloning in Missouri.”

Jaci Winship, director of Missourians Against Human Cloning, also issued a written statement. “We are confident the court of appeals will uphold the ballot summary written by the circuit court and are preparing for that outcome,” she wrote. “We are hopeful the appeal process will move quickly so that our volunteer army that has been preparing for months will be able to move forward [to gather signatures].”

Some 150,000 valid signatures would be needed by May 5 in order for the proposal to reach the November 5 general election ballot.

The ballot summary of the 2006 “Amendment Two” misleadingly said it would “ban human cloning.” But within the over 2,100-word-long amendment (nearly half the length of the U.S. Constitution) was a provision that would allow “somatic cell nuclear transfer.”

This is cloning—in fact, it is the same method Ian Wilmut used to clone Dolly the sheep. Cloning is legal under Amendment 2 as long as the cloned embryos aren’t implanted in a woman’s womb—”clone and kill.”

The language in Judge Joyce’s revision asks the voters whether the state should “change the definition of cloning and ban some of the research as approved by voters in November 2006.”

Joyce struck Carnahan’s description that said the measure was “redefining the ban on human cloning or attempted human cloning to criminalize and impose civil penalties for some existing research, therapies and cures.”

In its place voters will be told the measure seeks to prohibit both “human cloning that is conducted by creating a human embryo at any stage from the one-cell stage onward” and “expenditure of taxpayer dollars on research or experimentation on human cloning.”