Missouri group trying to revoke nation's only Egg and Sperm law

A group calling itself "Cures Without Cloning" is trying to change the law in Missouri, supposedly strengthening it to prevent creation of cloned embryos, but what they are actually trying to do is make genetic engineering and same-sex conception legal in Missouri again. Their proposed new law would remove the language that prohibits implanting a human embryo that was not created by joining the sperm of a human male to the egg of a human female, even though there is no reason to remove that language in order to prohibit the creation of cloned embryos. And since all a scientist would have to do to get around the new law is make one change to the genome so it is no longer "virtually identical" to an existing person, it would not even prevent scientists from creating and destroying human embryos to their hearts content. Surely they are aware of these issues, so the only conclusion one can make is that they are intentionally trying to revoke the nations first anti-genetic engineering natural conception law and open the door to designer babies and same-sex conception, cynically trying to use people's opposition to cloning to re-legalize genetic engineering.

So make no mistake, Missourians, this is a con job. If you want to make it illegal to create embryos for destruction in stem cell research, then change the law so it prohibits creation, rather than only implantation, of human embryos that are "anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male".

DailyKos poll shows right priorities

I raised the issue of same-sex conception over at DailyKos, and in spite of the objections of a few commenters (about ten commenters who strenuously objected to the whole subject banded together and "troll rated" enough of my comments to get me "autobanned"), my simple poll suggests that a majority of readers there agree with the priorities of the "egg and sperm civil union compromise." I asked "Which is more important for same-sex couples?", and as of today there are 23 votes for "Marriage and the right to create genetic offspring together" and 28 votes for "Federal recognition of CUs and recognition by more states." That's close, and it is still quite shocking that 45% feel that conception rights and the word marriage are more important than giving same-sex couples federal recognition right now, but it should be encouraging for the candidates that have taken a civil unions position.

Here are my three diaries on the subject. Unfortunately most of my responses to their comments have been hidden, though I think you can see them by looking at my "comments" tab. It should be noted that, as on BlueMassGroup, it was raising the issue of conception rights for same-sex couples that people objected to, not any rules infraction.