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On Thursday, the Michigan Nurses Association – Michigan’s largest union for registered nurses – endorsed Proposal 2, the ballot proposal that would lift Michigan’s state ban on embryonic stem cell research. This is exceptionally good news, as it continues to prove that medical professionals all over Michigan are lining up in favor of embryonic stem cell research.
“Prop 2 would allow Michigan scientists to pursue the most promising medical research today ¬– embryonic stem cell research – which could end the suffering of people with diseases such as Parkinson’s, heart disease, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer’s, spinal cord injuries and more,” said Thomas Bissonette, representative of the MNA and a nurse on the front line, at the press conference in which the MNA endorsed Prop 2. “Few people understand better than nurses and doctors what their patients must endure … and what might help them.”
Predictably, the most vocal opponents of Prop 2, the Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Scientific Experimentation group (MiCAUSE), have begun to lash out in any and all ways possible. First it was the tremendous lie about Prop 2 raising our taxes (it doesn’t), and now it’s the TV ad featuring the flashing logos of phony corporations like Cloneway and HumanHarvest being used to scare voters into going their way.
As the nurses at the press conference pointed out, everybody knows somebody who could benefit from stem cell research. We all have a brother, a cousin, an aunt, a parent, or a friend who has suffered from a terrible and debilitating disease, and have all endured the anguishing of watching that loved one waste away, powerless at the hands of Michigan’s archaic ban to stop it.
The merits and benefits of Prop 2 far outweigh the negatives; if there even are any negatives. It will lift Michigan’s decades-old ban on embryonic stem cell research and allow the members of our scientific community to begin developing cures and treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, diabetes, and Crohn’s. It will allow us in the mitten state to do what they’ve been doing in over 40 other states all over America. It will bring in new and better industries and technologies to Michigan and inspire our fledgling economy to flourish, rather than continue to languish and waste away. Most importantly, it will open up doors for so many suffering from debilitating and degenerative diseases.
Rather than taking away life, as its opponents like to erroneously claim, Proposal 2 will help save it and reclaim it. The ballot language specifically mandates that research will be conducted on stem cells that are created at fertility clinics and would otherwise be thrown away in the garbage. Instead of tossing these stem cells out like bad milk, why not use them to develop cures and treatments for patients all over Michigan? Nurses and doctors all over the state are in agreement: voting “yes” on Proposal 2 is the right thing to do.
I have to vote no, I just find it hard to believe that Doctors and Nurses are excited to create life just to destroy for research that has proven unsuccessful. "if there even are any negatives" - there are plenty; and a good feeling of "rather than throwing away the life I created, I will let it go to science" does not make it morally correct. Nobody likes to see the results of disease, but putting your hopes into this mutant producing science is misguided and unproductive.
If the privet companies refuse to invest in this science than why should the public (the passage request is now, the bill will come next year when they need to fund their new toy).