Massachusetts Govenor Romney's Radio Ads Blast Stem Cell Pending Legislation
Related News: Stem Cells and GovernmentThe political pressure on undecided lawmakers, hit a new pitch when Governor Mitt Romney launches a radio ad today describing the state Senate's stem cell measure as a "radical cloning bill" and urging its defeat.
"Cloning would mean creating new human life, new embryos, just for experimentation," Romney says in the 60-second ad, which will run on stations statewide, paid for by his political committee. "If like me you support stem cell research but you oppose cloning human embryos, please tell your legislator. Help me oppose the radical cloning bill now on Beacon Hill."
Romney's maneuver, part of a flurry of activity on the eve of the Senate's vote on the issue today, is a bid to tap into the public's ambivalence over cloning. Recent polls indicate strong support for stem cell research, but deep doubts about the morality of cloning involving human cells. The bill under consideration on Beacon Hill would ban reproductive human cloning, or the creation of babies, but allow scientists to produce embryos for research. The latter is called therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer.
The Senate and House are expected to approve the measure, but it is unclear whether the House will produce a two-thirds majority that would be required to join the Senate in overriding Romney's expected veto. House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said yesterday afternoon that "I will do everything I can to get to two-thirds." But Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes all embryonic stem cell research but is backing Romney's stance, said, "We are within striking distance of sustaining a veto."
Posted on March 30, 2005 07:56 PM