Bill Clinton backs Michigan’s Prop 2

Former president Bill Clinton speaks Friday on behalf of CureMichigan. (photo: Alexa Stanard)

Former President Bill Clinton rallied a star-studded Michigan political crowd Friday to support a ballot proposal that would permit embryonic stem-cell research in the state.

Clinton appeared at the upscale fund-raiser hosted by CureMichigan, the organization backing Proposal 2, which will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.  He called support for stem-cell research “the pro-life position” and cited the research’s potential benefits both to those facing health problems like Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease and to Michigan’s struggling economy.

“There isn’t a person here who doesn’t know someone who could be benefited by this work,” Clinton told the crowd of several hundred in Waterford Township, northwest of Detroit. “This is not about cloning. This is about letting Michigan do what can be done in almost any other state.”

Michigan is one of five states with the most severe restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, along with Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana.

The proposed constitutional amendment would allow human embryos to be used for research permitted under federal law, so long as the embryos were created for fertility treatment purposes, would be discarded unless used for research, and were donated by the individual seeking fertility treatment.

The fight over the proposal has heated up in recent weeks, with the opposition, MiCause, running television ads claiming the proposal would lead to human cloning and to higher taxes. But Michigan bans cloning and the proposal says nothing about new taxes.  MiCause is funded by Michigan Right to Life and the Michigan Catholic Conference.

Dr. Joe Schwarz, a former Republican congressman who chairs CureMichigan, preceded Clinton to the podium Friday and called the arguments against stem-cell research “stunningly disingenuous.”

Gov. Jennifer Granholm speaking at Friday

Clinton’s talk followed remarks by Laura Jackson, a 19-year-old Livonia resident who was paralyzed from the neck down after a fall during cheerleader tryouts when she was 14. Told she had only four or five years to live, Jackson traveled to Beijing with her father for a stem-cell-based treatment. She immediately regained some feeling in her neck and shoulders and the ability to breathe without a ventilator for 15 minutes at a time.

“Stem-cell research will tell us how to get Laura to walk again,” Clinton said. “You’re not going to lose this unless people go into the voting booth not knowing the facts.”

Gov. Jennifer Granholm told the crowd she was there “on behalf of our state that needs both the jobs that would come from this but also the cures,” and Clinton also addressed the research’s promise for Michigan’s struggling economy.

“There is not a state in this country that has been hit harder by the economic adversity of this decade,” Clinton said. “This is actually a harbinger of a new economy if we don’t mess it up.  The future of our economy will rest more with our brains than with our backs.”

The event was held at the Taubman Air Terminal at the Oakland County International Airport, owned by billionaire A. Alfred Taubman, who last week announced he would give $22 million to the Taubman Institute for Medical Research at the University of Michigan.

An Oct. 9 Detroit News profile of Taubman highlighted his devotion to promoting stem-cell research and quoted Sean Morrison, the scientist in charge of the U-M stem-cell biology center:  “‘He’s the guy in Michigan. A lot of people have done a lot, there are other names, but I don’t think anyone has done as much as Alfred Taubman to make a difference on this issue here.’”

Clinton told the crowd that he agreed to attend the event after Taubman invited him during a visit to his office in Harlem a couple of weeks ago. Stem-cell research, Clinton said, “was all he wanted to talk about.”