The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today reported that MO House Bill HJR11 was killed in committee yesterday. Unfortunately, the P-D could not see past its own bias in order to report accurately on the measure. Ironically, in order to spin the truth, the article exposes the hypocrisy and deception of Amendment 2.
To begin with, take the opening paragraphs of the article:
A House committee killed legislation Monday designed to largely invalidate a new constitutional amendment protecting stem cell research.
The 3-4 vote by the House Rules Committee all but ends efforts this legislative session to overturn Amendment 2, which 51 percent of voters approved in November.
Based on this reporting, one would infer that the measure refers either to Amendment 2 in particular or stem cell research in general. To the contrary, the wording of HJR11 references neither stem cells nor Amendment 2. In fact, the words “stem cell” – or any derivation thereof – do not appear anywhere within the text of the measure:
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein:
That at the next general election to be held in the state of Missouri, on Tuesday next following the first Monday in November, 2008, or at a special election to be called by the governor for that purpose, there is hereby submitted to the qualified voters of this state, for adoption or rejection, the following amendment to article III of the Constitution of the state of Missouri:
Section A. Article III, Constitution of Missouri, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 38(e), to read as follows:
Section 38(e). 1. The general assembly may enact laws concerning health care research, including controlling taxation, appropriations, and use of public resources for health care research, and regulating research that could pose a risk to human life or health.
2. It is unlawful to engage in human cloning. For the purposes of this section and section 38(d) of this article, “human cloning” means the creation of a human zygote, human blastocyst, or human embryo by any means other than the fertilization of a human egg by a human sperm.
3. The provisions of this section supersede any provision of section 38(d) of this article that is inconsistent with this section.
As you can see, the measure makes no mention of either Amendment 2 or stem cells. How on earth, then, could the author make such a claim? Examine the next paragraph for the answer:
Opponents of Amendment 2 had wanted lawmakers to send a ballot measure to voters in November 2008. The proposed amendment would have asked the public to ban all forms of human cloning, including when the research is used solely to produce embryonic stem cells. Voters specifically protected that form of research by passing Amendment 2 last year.
The deception seems to get ever more subtle. To wit [emphasis added]:
The proposed amendment would have asked the public to ban all forms of human cloning, including when the research is used solely to produce embryonic stem cells.
Did you catch it? The problem with this statement is that “the research” – that is, human cloning – is never used “solely to produce embryonic stem cells”, since the result of human cloning is – always and by definition – a human embryo, not just embryonic stem cells.
The problem with this rationalization is the same problem that the proponents of Amendment 2 had during their 30 million dollar campaign of deception: the claim that Amendment 2 would “strictly ban human cloning“. In fact, as both an educated reading of the wording of the amendment as well as the double-speak found in this P-D article reveal, Amendment 2 not only did no such thing, it actually made human cloning constitutionally protected in the state of Missouri.
This duplicity is further revealed by the actions of the house committee that killed the measure [emphasis added]:
“I’d say that a third (of House members) will be happy they don’t have to vote on this,” said Shannon Cooper, R-Clinton.
Cooper, who serves as chairman of the House Rules Committee, said he voted against the measure simply because he supports Amendment 2.
If Amendment 2 “strictly bans human cloning” – as its supporters claims it to do – why would an Amendment 2 supporter vote against a measure that would allow Missouri voters explicitly to ban all forms of human cloning? Any proponent of Amendment 2 could only oppose such a measure if in fact human cloning were a part of Amendment 2. That supporters of Amendment 2 oppose this measure demonstrates that their claim that Amendment 2 “strictly bans human cloning” was an outright lie.
Cooper – and those like him – should be ashamed of himself, and is a disgrace to the Missouri Republican party. Duplicity, hypocrisy, lying, and subverting the democratic process have no place in the Republican Party. For one, if his beloved Amendment 2 “strictly bans human cloning” then what does he have to oppose in HJR11? For another, even if he legitimately opposes HJR11, how dare he deny the voters of Missouri the opportunity to exercise our democratic right?
The truth, which should now be plainly evident to all, is that Amendment 2 constitutionally protected human cloning for the purpose of human-embryo-destructive research, and that the proponents of Amendment 2 knew this truth and intentionally mislead Missouri voters into believing that passing Amendment 2 would “strictly ban human cloning”.
