ESCR Proponents Not Telling Whole Truth, Says Doctor
by Mary Rettig
September 7, 2004
(AgapePress) - The head of the Christian Medical Association says supporters of embryonic stem cell research are misleading California voters. Dr. David Stevens says that Proposition 71 will fund human cloning for the purpose of embryonic stem cell research, or ESCR. He also says that supporters of the legislative measure are doing some "verbal engineering" by not admitting that the bill funds human cloning.
"They just state they are not going to do reproductive cloning -- they are going to do somatic cell nuclear transfer," Stevens says, "which is cloning in itself. So there is a lot of confusion in the media about this issue: claiming that it is going to bring miraculous cures; and that they're just around the corner if we just had the funds to put toward this type of research; and that this is going to make California very prosperous because it will bring in biotech industry."
Also, the doctor notes, another bit of information supporters of Proposition 71 are carefully not saying is that embryonic stem cell research has yielded virtually no positive results. He believes this legislation, far from being a boon to humankind, will cause tremendous harm by allowing for the cloning human life in order to harvest embryonic stem cells. Stevens feels this pro-ESCR legislation could be disastrous, and not only for those lives cut short by the process it permits. He says, "When you look at California and the tremendous financial crisis they're in, where they're actually cutting back in essential services, it is ludicrous to put this type of burden on the taxpayers for research which is unlikely to produce any economic benefit in the near future."
The physician and CMA spokesman also notes that, with a price tag of $200,000 on average, treatments making use of embryonic stem cells would only be accessible to the very wealthy. Still, such treatments would have to work, and Stevens is skeptical that they ever would.
But regardless, the head of CMA says, the exploitation of human embryonic tissue in medical treatment would be "morally reprehensible to many of California's taxpayers." He adds, "Even if it did work, they wouldn't use this type of technology in their own medical care."
However, medical researchers acknowledge that any effective treatments or cures from ESCR -- if any are to be yielded at all -- are years away. In the meantime, Stevens says, the issue before California voters could cost citizens more than they think.
