Opposition
The coalition organization that led the opposition to the initiative was called Missourians Against Human Cloning. Jim Talent, an incumbent Republican US Senator facing re-election, has opposed the measure.
Those opposed to the Amendment also include many who disagree with wording in the amendment. They argued that the measure does not actually ban human cloning, but merely the attempt to implant cloned embryos into a human uterus. This has caused some people who are opposed to human cloning to be opposed to the Amendment. Some believe that the Amendment actually redefines human cloning from the commonly accepted scientific definition. Some opponents also believe that the Amendment includes vague language that could be interpreted by courts to make government funding of embryonic stem cell research a constitutional right (particularly the language in major sections 5 and 7 of the full-text of the Amendment link listed in "External Links"). Other opponents felt that this type of legislation is best handled through the legislative process carried out by the elected officials rather than by amending the state Constitution. Finally, stem cell research was legal in Missouri prior to the passing of the amendment.
In rebuttal to the Michael J. Fox advertisement (which never directly mentioned Amendment 2), a television ad with several celebrities appeared in opposition to the measure. At least three of the celebrities opposed the measure for religious reasons: Kurt Warner, former St. Louis Rams quarterback; Kansas City Royals baseball player Mike Sweeney, and James Caviezel, who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ speaking apparently Aramaic in the spot. Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond appeared on grounds that low-income women would be exploited for their eggs. Jeff Suppan, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals also appeared in opposition to the amendment.
Read more about this topic: Missouri Constitutional Amendment 2 (2006)
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“Women will not advance except by joining together in cooperative action.... Unlike other groups, women do not need to set affiliation and strength in opposition one against the other. We can readily integrate the two, search for more and better ways to use affiliation to enhance strength—and strength to enhance affiliation.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“It is useless to check the vain dunce who has caught the mania of scribbling, whether prose or poetry, canzonets or criticisms,—let such a one go on till the disease exhausts itself. Opposition like water, thrown on burning oil, but increases the evil, because a person of weak judgment will seldom listen to reason, but become obstinate under reproof.”
—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale 1788–1879, U.S. novelist, poet and women’s magazine editor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 36-40 (December 1828)
“Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)