A Doctor's Thoughts On Missouri Amendment 2

This letter was was written by a doctor in Washington, Missouri. Since the author invited readers to share his thoughts, I am reposting his letter in it's entirety. The only editing has been to change the letter to single spacing and bolding some sections. PC


Friends,

This letter is about the stem cell amendment. It is a far bigger deal than
all but a few realize.  There is a lot of misinformation out there and as I
have some knowledge of the subjects of medicine and law, I would l like to share, admittedly unrequested, my point of view of the matter.

First off let's be clear this is not a law we are voting on, it is not a proposition, it is a Constitutional amendment, the highest law in our state, and can only be changed by another Constitutional amendment or Federal action.  We should be careful in changing this document.  The reason we are discussing a constitutional amendment as opposed to a law so that the researchers, businessmen and administrators don't have to worry about the legislature trying to impose community standards on this research every legislative session.

Be aware that this amendment will clearly and explicitly place the right to pay women for the harvesting of embryos and eggs into our state constitution.  Never before has the right to purchase a body part been placed in any state constitution anywhere.  It is a certainty that women will be exploited to their detriment under this provision.  I am a big believer that everyone gets to go to hell in their own way.  I am also a big believer that the strong should not exploit but rather should protect the weak.  There are women who will, without really understanding the risks, sacrifice their long term health for a little short term cash under this bill. I cannot sanction such exploitation.

An activist court could, and there is no reason to think it could not, extrapolate this right and interpret this amendment as a constitutional right to sell other body parts such as organs and fetuses.  Some might be in favor of this, fine, but for reasons similar to above, I am not and I think
that the pros and cons of such an issue needs to be debated on its own merits in the light of day, not in some sneaky underhanded way.

Also be aware that any restriction in place concerning the practice of abortion in our state will be challenged under this amendment.  This would include, parental notification, age restriction, and partial birth abortion. Please see the advocacy sections of the web sites of the national office of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU to review discussions of this.  This
amendment represents among the states a truly unique approach to the regulation (or deregulation) of all sorts of reproductive questions and is being watch very closely by a number of national advocacy organizations. Once again, your position on this may be different than mine (and you might be surprised what mine is), but shouldn't such a debate be held out in the open on its merits, rather than using underhanded language to subvert open debate.

This amendment is being disingenuously pushed by those with an enormous financial interest in its passage.  Be aware of this fact when anyone who argues in favor of this is from a large academic institution such as Wash U. or Mizzou. There are billions of dollars of research grants depending on the passage of this amendment. We will be the only state in the country with
such an amendment.   Its passage will turn our state into the destination for anyone who wants to do any federally approved research on embryos free of any kind of community standards.  Any standards we want to impose will have to be done by another constitutional amendment.  What Las Vegas was to gambling, we will be to stem cell research.  This is an important bias to remember when listening to "experts" describe their support for the amendment.  All this is not to protect the right to access to lifesaving cures, It is to protect the access of these researchers to this money.  In
their quest for cash, they are cynically playing on the hopes of the ill and buying the support of an additional segment of out community who hopes to use the language to support their own agenda of backdoor deregulation of abortion in our state.  For this dissimilation alone, the amendment should be defeated.  Honestly, I would look on the amendment more favorably if it was being pushed as a vehicle for economic development, at least that would be more honest.

Look, these researchers are people just like you and me.  They mean well and are not evil money grubbers.  They do great work.  But they do themselves and us a disservice by not admitting to all the horses they have in this race.  It makes me concerned they are overstating the promise of their work for a few bucks.  I would rather they avoid all these issues and spend more effort on stem cells that don't require the destruction of human embryos (so called somatic  stem cells).  It seems to be more promising but there is currently less money in the pipeline for it.

Aside from the economic stimulation, there is no real benefit to you and me in changing the constitution in this way.  Cures will still be researched. Wash U will just get less money at the expense of women who want to sell their embryos.  We will reserve our right to debate these other ethical issues openly and honestly while ensuring this research is done within the standards of our community.  This amendment gives us a head start in the race to the bottom of embryonic stem cell research.  It is not a race I personally wish to win.

If you found this useful forward it to your contacts to stimulate the
debate, let me know what you think, even if I made you angry.

Tom
(Thomas Davis MD)