Opponents launch effort to overturn Missouri's stem cell amendment

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Two Republican lawmakers launched an effort Tuesday to repeal a voter-approved amendment protecting embryonic stem cell research in Missouri and replace it with a constitutional ban on a particular research method.

Voters in November narrowly approved an amendment, 51-49 percent, that constitutionally protects any stem cell research allowed by federal law and bans attempts to create a cloned human baby.

The amendment's human cloning ban, however, uses a definition that allows a cloning procedure to create early human embryos, which then are destroyed when the resulting stem cells are removed for research.

"Our focus is to ban all human cloning, including research cloning," Rep. Jim Lembke, of St. Louis, said Tuesday as he and Sen. Matt Bartle, of Lee's Summit, launched their counterattack to the amendment.

Bartle said as more people learn what the amendment actually does, they're coming around to oppose the research protections it contains.

The Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures spent more than $30 million in sponsoring the amendment and was quick to respond to Tuesday's opposition effort, saying the lawmakers don't trust the voters.

"This is just another attempt to hijack the democratic process," said coalition spokeswoman Connie Farrow. "The voters knew what they were voting on. It's reprehensible that they would suggest voters were ill-informed."

Protected by the amendment is a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, in which the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg is replaced with the nucleus from another cell, such as a skin or nerve cell. The altered egg then is stimulated to grow and divide in a lab dish as if it were fertilized. Researchers remove the resulting stem cells, destroying the embryo in the process.

Supporters believe the procedure could lead to cures for various diseases and conditions, from Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries, but opponents say the cloning process kills early human life.

Bartle and Lembke plan to ask legislators next year to place another amendment on the ballot in 2008. This one would undo the newly approved stem cell language and instead place 46 words in the Missouri Constitution to prohibit human "cloning" -- defined as creating an embryo by any method other than a sperm fertilizing an egg.

Bartle said he didn't know the proposal's chance of winning approval in the Legislature, where similar proposed laws haven't moved far in recent years, even before a public vote on the topic. Also, Gov. Matt Blunt, a fellow Republican, supports somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Bartle said if the effort fails in the Legislature, collecting signatures to place it on the ballot through initiative petition could be considered, as proponents did with this year's amendment.

The legislators first presented their proposal at the Capitol and had scheduled stops later Tuesday in Cape Girardeau, Chesterfield, Kansas City and Springfield.

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