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They have a point.
A group known as Cures Without Cloning is promoting a constitutional amendment that would restrict embryonic stem-cell research by banning all human cloning, both therapeutic and reproductive (more on those terms later).
The group objects to Carnahan’s summary of their amendment issued Oct. 10, which is what people will see in the voting booth if Cures Without Cloning gets enough signatures on petitions.
This isn’t the first semantic scuffle in which Carnahan has become embroiled. Last year she published a questionable synopsis of Amendment 2, which banned reproductive cloning but allowed therapeutic cloning for research.
Yet her Amendment 2 summary said flatly that the measure would “ban human cloning or attempted cloning,” something the measure did not do, at least as I understand the word “cloning.”
It was clever wording. As I’ll explain, it was correct in a narrow legal sense, but misleading. It has been ruled valid by the courts, which give wide leeway to state officials in this area.
Her summary of the latest amendment — the one backed by Cures Without Cloning — also seems a stretch. Here’s the first paragraph:
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to repeal the current ban on human cloning or attempted cloning and to limit Missouri patients’ access to stem cell research, therapies and cures approved by voters in November 2006?”
To repeat: Cures Without Cloning would toughen last year’s amendment.
Yet Carnahan’s summary says the group wants to “repeal the current ban.”
Carnahan’s chief of staff, Mindy Mazur, told The Star: “We’re confident that the summary language is fair and reflects how the constitution would be changed if this initiative were to get on the ballot and were passed.”
Like the 2006 summary, the latest synopsis threads the legal needle but creates a misleading impression.
Yes, Cures Without Cloning would repeal last year’s ban on reproductive cloning. But the summary doesn’t state clearly that the old language would be replaced with restrictions that are even broader.
Instead, that point is muddled. What sticks in the reader’s mind is the statement that the new amendment would “repeal the current ban on human cloning.”
Both the latest summary and that for Amendment 2 conform to the increasingly esoteric vocabulary that has grown up around this issue, starting with the interesting twist on the word “cloning.”
Amendment 2 defined the word in what strikes me as a dodgy way. It asserted that cloning doesn’t begin until an artificially created embryo is implanted in a woman.
Since cloning would be defined as implantation of an embryo, Carnahan — in her Amendment 2 summary — could claim the measure would “ban all human cloning …”
But according to my dictionary, cloning is the process of creating a genetic duplicate “by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized ovum with the nucleus of a body cell from the [donor] organism.” In plain English, cloning begins with the transfer of the genetic material, not with the implantation of the fertilized egg in a uterus.
Before this debate erupted, most people made the key distinction in reasonably clear language.
Without blushing or shrinking in horror from the C-word, many supporters of stem-cell research explained that they backed therapeutic cloning — with the goal of harvesting stem cells that could cure diseases such as diabetes. Reproductive cloning, which everyone condemned, was aimed at producing a child.
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