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Michigan’s Modest Ballot Proposal Gains Media Support
A few weeks ago, we wrote about a report by the Michigan Prospect that predicts significant economic gains to the Great Lakes State if it were to repeal its constitutional ban on stem cell research.
Today, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News both endorsed a new policy that will be on the ballot this November in Michigan, and, if passed, will allow significantly more stem cell research.
Michigan has the most restrictive anti-stem cell research laws in the nation, a tragedy which is compounded by the fact that Michigan has one of the most productive biotech R&D infrastructures of any state. Michigan is home to some of the nation’s most prestigious academic research universities and nonprofit institutes as well as 542 private life sciences companies that employ 31,777 workers.
The Detroit News interviewed Doug Engel, head of the cell and developmental biology department at the University of Michigan, about the current law. Engel lamented the fact that the law, which threatens Michigan’s scientists with criminal prosecution if they derive their own embryonic stem cells, has forced his colleagues to order stem cells from out of state, thereby slowing down research. One of his colleagues had to wait seven months for stem cell lines, a situation that Engel calls “not conducive to cutting-edge research.” A situation so non-conducive, in fact, that another of Engel’s colleagues—a top stem cell biologist—eventually left Michigan for California.
Perhaps the greatest irony about the current law is that its intention is to protect embryos, but instead of allowing for leftover embryos from IVF clinics to be used for research, the embryos are simply destroyed.
The proposed new law simply allows researchers to use leftover embryos from IVF clinics as sources of stem cells. The new law also has sensible provisions built into it that prohibit the buying and selling of embryos, as well as the creation of embryos specifically for research. This, of course, would still outlaw therapeutic cloning (or research cloning, otherwise known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT) as Michigan’s 1998 prohibition of both reproductive and therapeutic cloning would remain intact. The ballot initiative prohibits the derivation of stem cells from an embryo that has undergone cell division for 14 days or more, and also stipulates that proper informed consent must be obtained from the donors and that the embryos must otherwise not be suitable for implantation. For an interactive explanation of each of the ballot item’s provisions check out Cure Michigan’s website.
Both newspapers do make the concession that the law perhaps goes a tad to far by putting a blanket ban on future regulations. However, they both acknowledge that the legislature could still revise the state Constitution in the future if needed.
Altogether, this is a modest ballot proposal that will repeal the most extreme and counterproductive provision of Michigan’s Constitution.
Comments on this article
“Altogether, this is a modest ballot proposal that will repeal the most extreme and counterproductive provision of Michigan’s Constitution.”
Setting up an industry free of state and local regulation because it “discourages” embryonic stem cell research is “a modest” proposal?
No other industry operating in Michigan is free from legislative regulation. And by the way, there are no federal laws restricting ESCR; only the funding of same with our tax dollars.
And if a scientist decides to create an animal – human hybrid like they have in England, the Michigan legislature could not regulate that unless it got a two-thirds majority to change the state constitution. Any chance of getting a two-thirds majority on any substantive issue?
Modest Proposal? Embryos can be bought and sold except for stem cell research.
Embryos, defined as created by purpose (fertility treatment) but not by technique (cloning), could be sent into Michigan for research. Hence , it is not limited to “in vitro fertilization.”
Jonathan Swift’s “Modest Proposal” recommends eating Ireland’s poor children as a way to prevent the children from being a burden to their parents or country and to make them beneficial to the public. But Swift was using sarcasm. Supporters of this “modest proposal” mean it.
October 15th, 2008 at 8:09 pm