By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 25, 2005; A04
ST. LOUIS -- As Jeff McCaffrey views the Missouri stem cell debate, the case for research is clear. Paralyzed in a traffic accident, the former Air Force Academy cadet sees embryonic stem cell work as "faithful, godly and absolutely moral."
"Hopefully," said McCaffrey, 21, "people like me can get out of our wheelchairs."
To many socially conservative Republicans and religious leaders in Missouri, however, a new political campaign to legalize and protect such research is an evil to be fought in courtrooms, churches and polling stations.
Lawrence Weber, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, called it "morally reprehensible science." Bishops instructed priests to deliver pointed homilies.
Voters may be asked to decide. After the courts weigh in, that is.
At issue is an amendment to the Missouri constitution proposed for the November 2006 ballot by a well-funded coalition of research institutions and patient advocacy groups frustrated by legislative attempts to ban early stem cell work in a state with a significant stake in biomedical research.
If voters support the amendment, Missouri would be the first state to formally recognize a right for scientists to conduct federally approved embryonic stem cell research, and for patients to receive treatment, backers say.
"We're not trying to fund stem cell research," said Donn Rubin, chairman of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which has collected $2.9 million for the ballot drive. "All we're trying to do is to ensure the freedom in our state to pursue cutting-edge medical research and to ensure that when cures and treatments are found, Missourians have the same access as any other American would have."
The collision of politics, science and religion is particularly vivid in a region where, just next door, a conservative majority on the Kansas State Board of Education recently rewrote science standards to spur teachers to challenge modern Darwinian evolution.
Stem cell proponents believe a ballot victory in a largely Republican state such as Missouri would be a significant boost for science and a satisfying win in the culture wars.
From the other side, opponents would love to see social conservatives crowd the polls in a replay of last year's overwhelming approval of a ban on same-sex marriage, yet Republicans are more divided on the stem cell issue. While Sen. James M. Talent is co-sponsoring a federal bill that would ban the procedure widely known as therapeutic cloning, Gov. Matt Blunt (R) and former senator John C. Danforth (R) have backed the proposed ballot initiative.
"My entire political career, I voted pro-life, and that is exactly why I favor the stem cell initiative," Danforth, an Episcopal minister and former U.N. ambassador, says in a television advertisement. "I believe in saving human life. I want cures to be found."
A particular type of embryonic stem cell research has become the focus of the Missouri debate. Known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), it is the procedure that produced Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal. In SCNT, the nucleus of an unfertilized egg is replaced with the nucleus of an ordinary body cell that contains a full set of genetic information.
Within a few days, this develops into a human embryo, or the beginnings of one, that contains a cluster of stem cells, which can become any type of cell in the human body. Scientists hope one day to use such cells to replace damaged or diseased tissue.
Most mainstream scientists contend that the cells should not be considered an embryo or a human clone because they are not implanted in a woman's uterus and will not become a fully formed fetus.
"When people hear the phrase 'clone a human being,' they think of an attempt to make a human version of Dolly the sheep. No one thinks of making a few dozen cells in a petri dish," said William B. Neaves, president and chief executive of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a private institution in Kansas City, Mo., with a $2 billion endowment. "We believe, as do many people of faith, that a few cells in a petri dish cultured from a patient's own skin cells do not represent a new human being."
Embryonic stem cell research remains legal in Missouri, but repeated efforts to criminalize it caused Stowers to limit recruiting and halt plans for a second laboratory. Neaves said the organization could not in good conscience hire researchers who might face charges.
To sidestep the risk, institute founders Jim and Virginia Stowers donated about $6 million this year to support Harvard Stem Cell Institute expert Kevin Eggan, who will work in Cambridge, Mass., until Missouri's direction is clear.
The Stowers Institute and Washington University in St. Louis are potent lobbying forces and prime backers of the Missouri amendment drive. The national roster of supporters includes the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Foundation, the Parkinson's Action Network and the American Diabetes Association.
Before voters can address the amendment, which would also create oversight mechanisms and outlaw the creation of a cloned human, supporters must overcome a legal challenge filed by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.
"The primary evil with human cloning is they're cloning a human for the purposes of harvesting the parts, the stem cells," said lawyer Kevin Theriot. "The real problem is the ballot title and summary says the purpose of the initiative is to ban human cloning when in fact it authorizes a type of human cloning."
Cole County Senior Judge Byron Kinder set a hearing for Jan. 19. "I assume we're going to have to go into the question of when does life begin," Kinder said.
The principal local challenger is Missourians Against Human Cloning, incorporated last month by Missouri Catholic Conference executive Weber. The Catholic conference and the Missouri Baptist Convention formally joined the case last week.
Catholic bishops asked parish priests and deacons to speak about the issue at Mass.
St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke has described the proposed research as "intrinsically evil." Burke -- who said he would deny communion to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a Roman Catholic, because of his support of abortion rights -- said parishioners must not succumb to "false promises and statements by this initiative's proponents."
Washington University scientist Richard A. Chole is among those who oppose SCNT on moral grounds, saying it is not "proper for us to be creating and destroying human embryos." He also objects to calling the procedure therapeutic cloning, because therapies do not exist.
Taking the opposing view is McCaffrey, who was paralyzed in 2002 as a passenger in a van that rolled over. He volunteered to do commercials for the Missouri initiative.
"Being a Catholic myself, I look at it as we have a moral obligation to alleviate disease, to find cures and to save human life," said McCaffrey, who attends the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He said people who condemn the research on the basis of faith are "undermining faith and religion."