Stem-cell measure may miss Mo. ballot

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A proposal to reverse part of a 2006 constitutional amendment allowing embryonic stem-cell research appears in jeopardy of not making Missouri's ballot.

The group Cures Without Cloning has not yet begun gathering petition signatures for its amendment. That's because it is waiting for an appeals court ruling on a challenge to the ballot language.

But even if the appeals court were to rule today, supporters of the ballot proposal would be hard-pressed to gather the roughly 150,000 signatures needed by the 5 p.m. May 4 deadline.

The task would not be impossible, but it would be challenging -- and is growing increasingly so with each day that passes, acknowledged Jaci Winship, executive director of Missourians Against Human Cloning, one of the key groups backing the amendment.

The proposal would change the definition of banned human cloning adopted by voters two years ago to prohibit a type of research in which a human embryo is cloned and then destroyed in a lab dish when its stem cells are removed.

The Missourian Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which sponsored the 2006 amendment, already has spent more than $2.2 million -- including $1.1 million in the past three months -- while preparing to defend its initiative from the proposed changes.

The coalition, which spent $30 million to get the original measure passed, has hired a campaign management firm from Washington, D.C., and is in the midst of a $100,000 makeover of its Web site. It also has been sending people door to door in the St. Louis area to discourage people from signing the latest petition.

"We have been gearing up for that fight," said coalition spokesman Jim Goodwin. "There's a good chance now that it might not happen, but we're still prepared for that."

Cures Without Cloning had just $770.53 in its bank account, according to finance reports filed Tuesday with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

"I don't think it's a big surprise that fundraising has been a bit challenging with the cloud of legal uncertainty hanging over there," Winship said.

At issue before the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, is the way the measure would be described for voters on the ballot.

The wording originally approved by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said the amendment would "repeal the current ban on human cloning" and limit access to stem-cell research and therapies by criminalizing some currently allowed procedures.

Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce revised that in February to state that the amendment would "change the definition of cloning and ban some of the research as approved by voters in November 2006." She also removed Carnahan's wording that the amendment would criminalize some existing research.

Petition signatures must be gathered on documents containing the initiative summary that would appear on the ballot. So if supporters gathered signatures now, and the appeals court overturned the trial court language, those signatures would be invalidated.