Human Cloning Petition Appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court

April 18, 2006, JEFFERSON CITY, MO – On Wednesday April 12, 2006 the Catholic bishops of Missouri appealed a judgment by two members of a three-judge panel of the Western District of Missouri Court of Appeals that a ballot title to a stem cell research initiative was sufficient and fair. In their appeal for a rehearing or transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court, the bishops claimed that the official ballot title “misleads and deceives the voters of the state of Missouri.”

Missouri law requires the Missouri Secretary of State to develop a ballot title not exceeding one hundred words that summarizes the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment.

The ballot title, which is the only information on the proposal voters will see upon entering the voting booth, includes a statement that the proposal bans human cloning. But the full text of the proposed amendment to the state constitution that voters will not read in the voting booth allows a human cloning procedure known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), and for researchers to destroy the human lives thus created for biomedical research purposes.

“We are very concerned with the deceptive wording of the human cloning initiative,” stated Deacon Larry Weber, Executive Director of the Missouri Catholic Conference. “Missouri voters have a right to know that somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is human cloning and this initiative will enshrine human cloning and the destruction of human life in the state’s constitution.”

Missourians Against Human Cloning, a coalition of individuals and organizations which oppose the cloning of human beings for research purposes, originally brought the suit claiming the ballot title was deceptive. The Catholic bishops of Missouri intervened in support of the plaintiffs, as did representatives of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

On Thursday, January 19, 2006 Cole County Circuit Judge Byron Kinder ruled that the ballot title for the human cloning petition was sufficient and fair. Missourians Against Human Cloning and the Catholic bishops of Missouri appealed Judge Kinder’s ruling to the Western District of Missouri Court of Appeals.

On Tuesday, March 28, 2006 two members of the three-judge Court of Appeals panel upheld the lower court ruling. However one of the three judges dissented from the ruling and agreed that the ballot summary is ambiguous and should be changed.

Judge James Smart wrote in his dissenting opinion that the ballot title was insufficient for ballot purposes as it did not clarify the meaning and context of what is meant by “human cloning.”