Nancy Reagan's advocacy could sway voters
By Bobby Caina Calvan, Globe Correspondent | June 27, 2004
SACRAMENTO -- A $3 billion stem cell research initiative has qualified for the ballot in California, and both sides are marshaling their forces for what is expected to be a heated debate about science, morality, money -- and the desperation to find cures for some of humankind's most loathsome diseases.
Backers hope momentum is on their side, given the attention generated by former first lady Nancy Reagan, who last month delivered a poignant plea for expanding the controversial research that she and others believe could lead to medical breakthroughs.
Supporters of the California initiative, while avoiding any appearance of exploiting the recent death of Reagan's husband, President Ronald Reagan, acknowledge that the former first lady has helped their message resonate among an increasingly sympathetic public.
One recent national poll suggested that three-fourths of Americans are inclined to support stem cell research, partly because of the former president's death and his widow's call for action after watching his long struggle with Alzheimer's.
"I'm sure her words touched everyone personally, and will make people think about the issue. Her remarks were extremely poignant," said Janet Zucker, a friend of Nancy Reagan who with her husband, movie producer Jerry Zucker, is among those behind the ballot measure.
"For her, it's not about politics. It's about the pain she's personally felt . . . I think Nancy is coming at this from a personal place," said Zucker, whose 16-year-old daughter was diagnosed with diabetes five years ago.
During a May 9 fund-raiser sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the former first lady made her first public remarks supporting stem cell research -- though she has thus far not endorsed the ballot initiative.
"Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with answers that have so long been beyond our grasp," she said. "I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this -- there are just so many diseases that can be cured, or at least helped."
Her remarks were widely reported and spawned another wave of calls urging President Bush to relax restrictions put in place in August 2001 that limited federal funding to research on more than 60 embryonic stem cell lines that were already in existence and would not pay for research creating new ones -- a policy that critics say hampers science. Only 19 of those lines are currently available, according to the National Institutes of Health. Bush has said he will stick with his policy.
Stem cell research, particularly that involving embryos, remains controversial because of the same moral debate that has roiled discussions about abortion. To harvest embryonic stem cells, embryos must be destroyed. Some also fear that technology developed for so-called therapeutic cloning could be used for reproductive cloning, which would be prohibited by California's ballot measure.
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