Missouri Catholics join in efforts for real ban on human cloning

Published: 2007-08-28

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (CNS) -- Missouri voters will get another crack at a true ban on human cloning if a grass-roots petition campaign, led by physicians and backed by Catholic leaders, is successful. Dr. Lori Buffa, a pediatrician in St. Peters, has filed with Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan a proposed 300-word constitutional amendment that a coalition called Cures Without Cloning hopes to place before Missouri voters next year. Carnahan has 30 days to act on the amendment language and write the language that will appear on a ballot. Cures Without Cloning will then have until May 4, 2008, to collect between 140,000 and 150,000 signatures to place the issue on the Nov. 4, 2008, general election ballot statewide. Buffa said the Cures Without Cloning amendment would "clarify the confusing definition" of human cloning that was placed into the Missouri Constitution last November with the passage of Amendment 2. The 2,100-word Amendment 2 purported to "ban human cloning and attempts to clone" a human being, but redefined "cloning" only as "to implant or attempt to implant in a uterus" a cloned embryo. Buffa said this language allows research laboratories to create cloned embryos as long as those embryos are not implanted in a mother's womb.

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