Missouri’s great debate over stem cell research is often a debate over language, with both sides trying to define terms in ways that fit their agendas.
The latest example involves a fight within the crowd seeking to block research on early stem cells. The dispute involves the ballot summary approved by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan to describe the proposed initiative that a group called Cures Without Cloning is trying to get on the ballot.
Curt Mercadante, the group’s spokesman, said Carnahan’s wording was unfair because it says that the initiative would “repeal the current ban on human cloning or attempted cloning.”
Mercadante said nothing in the proposal would repeal the current ban on trying to create a cloned human baby. Amendment 2, approved last year, made it a felony in Missouri to implant cloned cells into a woman’s womb.
“We’re not repealing the current ban, we’re adding to it,” Mercadante said. “The constitution currently bans some cloning, ours bans all of it. People can argue about whether it affects stem cell research, but to say that it would repeal a ban on human cloning is obviously not what we’re doing.”
Mercadante’s point set off a firestorm among his own supporters, many of whom consider such a statement heresy. Hardcore opponents claim that as soon as a cell is copied in a laboratory dish using the cloning process, a microscopic, cloned human being is created even if the cell is never implanted in a woman’s uterus.
That position is summed up in a blog posting by Wesley Smith, a writer who opposes research on early stem cells and contributes frequently to the conservative Weekly Standard. Smith also has testified before the Missouri Senate in support of a ban on cloning research. The post, sent out by abortion opponent Mary Kay Culp of Kansans for Life, blasted Mercandante for straying from the party line.
“Proponents of the initiative don't have their act together,” Smith wrote. “….CURT: The current law doesn't ban any cloning. It bans implantation. (Read the above repeatedly until it sinks in.) Language matters! If you are going to speak to the media, know what you are talking about. Otherwise, your cause loses.”
The same issue came up last year during litigation over the ballot language for Amendment 2. A leading spokesman against such research acknowledged that most people hearing the term “human cloning” would expect to see a baby, not a Petri dish.
David Prentice, a former life sciences professor at Indiana State University who now works for the Family Research Council in Washington, gave a deposition about his belief that a cloned human cell is a human being from the moment it is created. He said he disagreed with experts who consider cloned cells a tissue culture similar to growing skin cells to treat burn victims.
During the trial, lawyers pointed out that the Scottish scientist who created Dolly, the first cloned sheep, did the cloning procedure nearly 300 times before the process resulted in a live birth. Only then did he announce that he had cloned a sheep. He didn’t claim to have cloned a sheep each time he cloned sheep cells in the lab.
In the deposition, lawyers asked Prentice whether the average person would consider cloning cells in lab to be the same as cloning a person.
Lawyer: “If you were to ask the man on the street, most people, when they talk – ask about Dolly the sheep, they are going to know that it's a cloned sheep; correct?”
Prentice: “Correct.”
Lawyer: “And if you asked the person on the street about a cloned human, they are going to expect it to be a baby; right?”
Prentice: “Probably so.”
In the blog post, Smith takes the government and the media to task for manipulating the language against his cause.
“Given that there is a good — albeit not certain — chance voters would reject human cloning, the Establishment happily resorts to Orwellian language engineering — to the cheers of most MO media,” he wrote.
However, given that the initiative his side is pushing would ban cloning cells in a Petri dish and his own scientific spokesman has acknowledged that most people might not consider such experiments to be “human cloning,” which side is manipulating the language?
In this debate, it seems that neither side can claim the linguistic higher ground.
Human Cloning
Kit: Your reporting continues to be biased and scientifically inaccurate. I am not trying to "define terms" to "fit my agenda" but in furtherance of my strong belief that integrity and respect for democracy require that the human cloning and embryonic stem cell debates be based on scientifically accurate lexicon. And it seems to me that the media has a crucial role to play in this regard, and you aren't playing it.
For example, your continued use of the advocacy term "early stem cells" in your stories and this blog entry is not one used in most of the scientific community--except occasionally, primarily in MO--when political operatives and their camp followers in the media are trying to persuade the public to allow human cloning research. The correct term is embryonic stem cells since they come from embryos. Moreover, somatic cell nuclear transfer is not a synonym for embryonic stem cell research. The former, creates a cloned embryo. The latter is one potential use for an embryo, whether created through fertilization or cloning. Also, ESCR has never been illegal in MO, nor was the legislation about which I testified aimed at making it against the law. It was aimed at banning all human cloning. Had it passed, ESCR could have been conducted in MO free of any legal impediment.
Somatic cell nuclear transfer would create--if it is ever done successfully--a cloned human embryo. This is acknowledged in science papers the world over, and in media where cloning is not controversial. Once the new organism comes into being through SCNT, cloning is over. There is no further cloning. After that, the question becomes what to do with the new human organism that has been created. That too, is the science.
Amendment 2's definition of human cloning is junk biology, by claiming that cloning is implantation. But that is wrong scientifically. Indeed, Amendment 2 banned implantation precisely because it could result theoretically in a pregnancy--which requires an embryo. You could implant a skin cell line, if that is all that SCNT creates, until the cows come home and never--not even theoretically--result in a pregnancy.
You also failed to quote the part where I said implantation of a cloned embryo is no more cloning than implanting an IVF embryo is fertilization. Typical.
As I stated, my concern in writing my blog entry was to promote scientific accuracy in advocacy. As an aside, I nudged the good people who want a true cloning ban to make sure they communicate their important message accurately and robustly since it is hard to break through the biased news blockade of the KC Star.
Wesley J. Smith