Proponents of embryonic stem cell experimentation are attempting to resurrect the failed California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, originally launched in 2004 under Proposition 71. The new bond measure, Prop 14, and will cost taxpayers nearly $8 billion.
The Prop 71 campaign was riddled with misrepresentations, deception, and outright fraud. So what has changed since 2004 that would warrant another round of funding for the institute? In a word: NOTHING.
Here’s why you should vote no on Prop 14:
· Even though the institute and other entities have spent billions on unethical research using human embryonic stem cells, not one actual cure has been developed.
· MIT’s Technology Review reports that “no field of biotechnology has promised more and delivered less in the way of treatments than embryonic stem cells.”
· Even the San Francisco Chronicle—not exactly a pro-life outlet—is critical of Prop 14. In its comprehensive investigation of California Institute, the Chronicle reported, “Not a single federally approved therapy has resulted from California Institute of Regenerative Medicine-funded science.”
· California law includes a “clone and kill” provision that allows researchers to clone human beings for the purpose of extracting their stem cells for research. Human embryonic stem cell research requires scientists to clone human beings and then extract their stem cells. Any “leftover” human embryos not used for experimentation must be destroyed.
· Research using embryonic stem cells is not necessary, as there are alternatives that use patients’ own stem cells, in some cases reprogrammed to behave like human embryonic stem cells. Researchers have found that reprogrammed adult stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells, “are molecularly and functionally equivalent” to embryonic stem cells.
· Still, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine insists that adult stem cells, unlike embryonic stem cells, are “very restricted in what they can do.” This is simply untrue.
· Multiple media outlets have found that institute’s board had exercised “improper and potentially illegal influence on the allocation of public funds.”
· Former institute board member Jeff Sheehy opposes Prop 14, saying, “I continue to have serious concerns around board member conflicts of interest, with the majority of the board coming from institutions that have received the bulk of the institute’s spending.”
Now that the institute is out of money and looking to California taxpayers to rescue it, we can expect even more deception and manipulation from those who want us to prop up its unethical and unproven experimentation….
Life Legal anticipates that significant ethical and constitutional violations will arise under Prop 14 and we are prepared to take legal action if the initiative should pass.
Click here to read Life Legal’s full article on Prop 14.
Are you ok with killing an innocent person so that – probably not- you can live a little longer? False promises from the culture of death, Vote No on Prop 14.
I refused to sign to get this on the ballot when I was asked by a young man to sign the referendum, who was probably lied to as it not including stems cells from aborted babies. I did not vote for this Prop 71 either. In the first place such stem cells do not work because the body rejects stem cells from non relatives. Only adult stem cells from matching family members or one own stem cells, such as skin cells work. One Japanese scientist with some other ethical scientists have done “miraculous” things using such ethical methods. That type of science is where ones money should go.
I know a girl whose walled eye was cured without surgery using her own stem cells that had been saved from her umbilical cord when she was born. Duke University, where her stem cells were stored, did the procedure.
Put money into the ethical means, not these unethical means.
As Ilhan Omar once observed, “Just some people doing something.”
if this thing passes AGAIN,
Cali voters are hopelessly Brain Dead
Tragically, this passed.