The stem cell initiative, sabotaged

[bigbob]

The stem cell initiative, sabotaged

By Russell Korobkin, RUSSELL KOROBKIN is a professor of law at UCLA and a senior fellow at the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics.
March 3, 2006

IN COURT proceedings, parties sometimes advance novel legal theories in a good-faith effort to change the law. Sometimes, however, they make frivolous arguments in an effort to obscure issues or just to create delay. The former strategy plays an important role in a healthy legal system; without it, the law would never evolve. The latter strategy is just abusive. The lawsuit challenging Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, is an example of the latter.

In a trial that took place this week in Alameda County, a group of plaintiffs argued that the 2004 initiative, which permits the state to issue $3 billion of bonds to support stem cell research, violates the California Constitution. In support, anti-Proposition 71 lawyers are offering a series of legal arguments that have almost no chance of success.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...a-news-comment

[Leif]

The Alameda County court should have dismissed the stem cell lawsuit months ago. Instead, the court decided to give the plaintiffs the opportunity to present trial testimony. This overly cautious decision did a disservice to the California voters who approved Proposition 71. Even when the judge rules against them, as is extremely likely, the plaintiffs will no doubt appeal to create additional delay.

Russell Korobkin is a law professor at UCLA and a senior fellow at the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics. He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/san...l/14028600.htm

[bigbob]

Mar. 6--The politically charged battle over embryonic stem cells is threatening to derail state funding for collaborative research between the Medical College of Wisconsin and four other southeastern Wisconsin colleges..........."There was no reason the bill had to get caught up in this kind of anti-science politics," Doyle said. "Senator Kanavas has allowed a special interest group to come in and sabotage the bill."
Wisconsin Right to Life, which calls itself one of the most successful political action committees in the state, worked "behind the scenes" to ensure the BTA funding could not be used for embryonic stem cell research, said Barbara Lyons, the group's executive director.
"We think it's important that taxpayer funding should not go into embryonic stem cell research and the destruction of living human embryos," Lyons said.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/...ource=r_health