At one point in 2006 the Stowers Institute in KC promised to add hundreds of thousands of square feet to their research facilities if only Amendment 2 would pass and give Missouri researchers a constitutional right to clone and kill human embryos. Now almost two years have gone by, Amendment 2 has passed and two attempts to let voters truly ban this cloning research have been successfully defeated and Stowers have yet to make good on their promised research facility expansion. After the latest appellate court ruling basically in favor of these cloning supporters in our state, Laurie Roberts, a spokeswoman for the institute, said that they are still “not ready to proceed yet.” Why? Because:
“Those who oppose embryonic stem cell research have made it clear they will attempt another ballot initiative in 2010. We have a fiduciary responsibility to be assured that the political environment in Missouri is science-friendly before we invest in a second campus”
In other words, they’re scared, they know what we are capable of and they know that we will eventually win. They’re so afraid, in fact, that the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures has already spent over $2 million to fight against us – including $1.1 million in the past three months – and the Stowers Institute hired a campaign management firm from Washington, D.C. and is giving its website a $100,000 makeover (source). Remember, these people spent $30 million against us in 2006 only to win a mediocre victory. I have said this before: these people seriously underestimated the power and the passion of the pro-life faithful in this state.
If they were smart they would have let us try to go through with the cloning ban this year instead of trying to stall it in court for the last seven months only to now give us roughly two full years to train, educate and mobilize even more pro-life foot soldiers across the state. It is a fact that during the 2006 campaign the more people heard about the facts of human cloning the more they opposed protecting it as a constitutional right. That is why support for Amendment 2 saw a steady decline in the weeks and months running up to the election and why it only passed by the slimmest margin, despite its cushy 75% lead just months before. Because of this many have speculated that if the election had been held just a month or even a few weeks later Amendment 2 would have been defeated. That’s what happens when to truth is on your side.
Lucky for us the truth is still on our side and while we don’t want to repeal Amendment 2, we do want to truly ban all human cloning (which A2 did not do) in the state of Missouri and we’re as fired up as ever! Not only that but now we have even more time to prepare, strengthen and educate.
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”
~Admiral Yamamoto
I’m not sure I would say that Missouri pro-lifers have ever been “sleeping”, but certainly our resolve has been strengthened. And when we’re motivated and faced with a challenge we are a force to be reckoned with.
Previous posts:
More Stem Cell Research Whining in MO
Pro-Life Efforts Paying Off in Missouri
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them