Last fall, prior to the November general election, Amendment 2 backers promised voters they were not interested in obtaining taxpayer support for their unethical life science experiments. They claimed they just wanted to be left alone to pursue their destructive research in private. But those promises have proven to be misleading.

Throughout the 2007 legislative session, life science backers have offered a bewildering array of legislative attempts are underway to finance unethical life sciences. The Missouri Catholic Conference is opposing all of these attempts to raid the public treasury to finance human cloning and other unethical life science endeavors.

But lawmakers are under pressure from the Blunt administration and the life science industry to approve the funding. They are being told, inaccurately, that the proposals will not fund cloning or destructive life science research.

Most of the media attention has focused on the sale of assets of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA). In 2005 Governor Blunt proposed the sale of the assets of the MOHELA in order to fund the construction of building projects on the campuses of public universities.

That proposal led to a firestorm of opposition. The Missouri Catholic Conference opposed, and continues to oppose, the MOHELA sale because it would undermine the historic mission of MOHELA to provide affordable loans to college students and because the proceeds from the MOHELA sale could be used to finance unethical life science experiments.

Throughout the 2007 session of the Missouri General Assembly the MOHELA legislation (SB 389) has been the center of controversy. Faced with intense opposition and unfavorable poll numbers, the Blunt administration and bill sponsor Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) have crafted numerous versions of the MOHELA sale in attempt to curry Senate approval.

On March 8, 2007 Governor Blunt unveiled a new list of projects that he claimed would not fund unethical life science projects. The MOHELA plan removed funding for the life science projects on the campuses of public universities. But tucked deep within the proposal was another proposal to fund the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC), a life science promoter.

MTC is chaired by Donn Rubin, who was the official chairman of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which spent over $30 million to pass constitutional Amendment 2 last November. Many of the board members of MTC, as well as their affiliated organizations, were heavily involved in obtaining passage of Amendment 2. Affiliated with MTC is the Research Alliance of Missouri (RAM), which includes among its members the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, whose founders, Jim and Virginia Stowers, largely bankrolled the pro-Amendment 2 effort.

In the early morning hours of April 19, 2007, the Missouri Senate approved this new version of SB 389. As this Good News goes to print, the MOHELA legislation awaits action by the Missouri House of Representatives.

Although the MOHELA sale continues to move forward, the Missouri Catholic Conference has had success so far in stopping legislation (HB 365, sponsored by Doug Ervin, R-Kearney) to authorize the issuance of $10 million in tax credits to assist in commercializing research conducted at Missouri universities that could include unethical life science experiments.

Also of concern are provisions in HB 7, the appropriation for the Missouri Department of Economic Development, that would allow the use of state tobacco settlement funds for life science research. The bill currently stipulates that the funds may only be used for plant and animal life science research. However, passage of Amendment 2 makes such a stipulation unconstitutional.

The Missouri Catholic Conference will oppose all legislation that could be used to fund unethical life science in Missouri and will continue to do so.