Proponents of Missouri's proposed fetal stem cell proposition are more concerned about receiving a blank check from the taxpayers than science.

In all the bru-ha-ha over Amendment 2, the Stem Cell initiative, the debate has simply come down to whether or not the bill actually allows cloning. So the public discourse has become little more than the opponents of the bill saying it allows cloning, and is therefore immoral, to which the supporters shake their heads, simply say no cloning, and then proceed to make grandiose promises that, even if they can deliver on, will not be in the lifetimes of some of the people they trot forward to sell the bill to us.

Since many of the articles written on this subject reference religion, either in an appeal to morality or in mockery of a "silly value system", and many more just say it either is or isn't cloning, I felt a new perspective was needed, one not based in cloning or religion.

While I do not share many of the moral concerns of the detractors of the bill, I find the distortion of their views by their opponents absolutely disconcerting. i have always held the view that if you have to lie or distort the truth to get my attention, or try to garner my support, I have to hold the idea you're trying to get my support for in question.

To be honest, in making the issue about cloning, on which many of us are altruistic if it could actually find a cure, the religious objectors have moved the debate away from the important issue to a mostly unimportant side note. While I respect their devotion, they have largely trivialized this issue, and probably garnered support among those who are unconcerned with cloning (as well as allowing the repeated mantra that right wingers are lying about cloning). It's opponents have made it seem like there are only moral issues at stake, which makes the issue about the rights of the disabled versus the rights of embryos (which is hard to support since many of the experimental ones were going to be discarded anyways). But there are practical reasons to vote no as well.
In the field of private research, the game is trial and error. While many people think that stem cell research has just come about, and the big bad companies won't fund it because of moral reasons, stem cell research is nothing new. It's been around since 1997, and has been funded by private industry with little result. Testing in rats has developed nothing positive, only teratomas, which are monster tumors, and some other nasty side effects. When something fails in the private sector, the research is supposed to go in another direction. Whereas some scientists have had astounding success with adult stem cells and umbilical stem cells.
Why aren't these getting the hype of embryonic stem cells? And when they're mentioned, why do supporters of embryonic stem cell research try to downplay the significance of those other fields? The answer to that is relatively simple. If there is already a line of research doing what embryonic stem cells have the "potential" to do, that lacks teh controversy, and is applicable NOW, that certainly makes embryonic stem cell use less pertinent. And honestly, while embryonic stem cells may possibly one day do everything that we're promised, it's also likely that they will do nothing. The majority of research leads nowhere, and cures nothing. For every successful line of inquery, there are hundreds of lines of failure. Business has written off embryonic as a failure, and mostly, the funding has dried up. There are still some facilities that are conducting the legal research and don't demand public money.

It's also telling to me that of all the celebrities demanding that we directly fund this research, they're not putting money up themselves. At the very least this suggests to me that they think this might have some potential to help them, but see that the potential is very, very small, and don't want to waste their own money.

OK, so we're being misled about the intelligence and views of religious people and opponents of this measure. We're being misled about the viability of other types of research. We're maybe even being misled about what the poponent's of this bill think it's potential is. But the deliberate misleading is far from done. This bill isn't about protecting our access to cures. If cures are indeed found, everyone will have access to them. To believe otherwise is simply silly. Embryonic stem cell research is legal. And while some want to limit it, those limits are slight and actually no stricter than the brief on this bill claims it's restrictions are. There is no concerted effort to make this research illegal.

So what is this bill about? One word: money. Embryonic stem cell research is not very promising in the eyes of most businesses, and they're struggling for funding. If they can't get money, they'll have to (heaven forbid) go back to the drawing board and think of something else, or at the very least put this on the back burner for awhile until the technology is there to better study it. And for this they want us to sign a blank check and fund them into infinity with no accountability on research that may never lead anywhere. And even if we find that it'll lead absolutely nowhere, the only way to even limit funding is to remove the amendment. A yes vote on Amendment 2 is your signature on the bottom of a blank check to an industry that will enver tire of coming back with an open hand and greasing their palms with your money.

There are plenty of reasons to vote no on the Stem Cell Initiative, and there are plenty of good ones that don't even deal with religious or moral reasons. But they're just hoping that this November, the voters will be swayed by rhetoric and will be too full of sympathy to read the three pages of fine print, and just take their word that all the lame will walk again and there will be no more disease. So feel free to vote yes on Amendment 2, but don't be surprised if you can't find your wallet the next day, and nothing to show for it.