With every campaign speech Democratic candidate John Kerry makes in promoting embryonic stem cell research, Hudson County residents who support the idea can take pride.
Advocacy efforts and the legislative stand of state elected officials made Hudson County one of the key reasons Gov. Jim McGreevey was able to pass stem cell research legislation into law, and later, he pushed New Jersey to the forefront as the first state in the nation to fund embryonic stem cell research.
New Jersey’s bold move allowed the issue to become part of the national Democratic platform and a key provision in Kerry’s election efforts.
In an interview with the Hudson Reporter done earlier this year, McGreevey said, “In New Jersey, we clearly understand that stem cell research offers the greatest amount of hope and possibilities for thousands of citizens that suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and other diseases.”
Stem cell research is controversial because it uses the cells of discarded human embryos created for in vitro fertilization, but which would not be used in the end.
Numerous conservative groups believe these embryos constitute the earliest form of human life, even when they don’t come from eggs fertilized in a woman’s body. These groups also believe that allowing studies on human embryos would breach an important barrier, allowing for further and even more terrifying human experimentation later on, such as human cloning.
President George W. Bush has banned the use of federal money for such research and has made his opposition one of the key provisions to the Republican national platform upon which he is running for re-election.
But not all Republicans agree. Last year, Nancy Reagan, widow of former President Ronald Reagan – who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease prior to his death – broke ranks with the Republican Party, offering her support for the research. Her children have also spoken in favor of the research.
Explanation
Studies show that the human body is made up of a variety of cells, such as cells that make up the heart, lungs, skin or blood. But all of these evolve from a single kind of cell that is developed at the earliest stages of embryonic human development. These cells – called embryonic stem cells – are still waiting to evolve, and scientists believe the secret to curing many of many incurable ailments might be found in how they do evolve.
Because embryonic stem cells can only be found in human embryos, the research has been opposed by numerous political and religious groups who associate the research with abortion and human cloning.
Most recently, California’s Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also broke ranks with the Republican national position by allowing the question to be left up to the voters in his state.
“Not all Republicans are opposed to stem cell research,” said Elise DiNardo, a prominent Hudson County Republican. “There are moderates in the party like Gov. Schwarzenegger and former New York Mayor Rudy Guilani who do not agree with the national position.”
DiNardo said watching a member of the family slowly deteriorate from Alzheimer’s disease had convinced her of the necessity to find a cure.
“This was a vital individual, someone who had traveled the world only to end up in a nursing home struggling with day to day activities, forgetting to eat, to dress or to shower,” she said. “I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel through this research. We might be able to find a cure for some kinds of blindness and problems caused by spinal cord injuries. This research gives hope for the future. People need that hope, and I’m supporting the research in order to give them that hope.”
DiNardo said without research, victims of various accidents and diseases will become an increasing burden on society.
“If people can be treated for these, they can function and prosper,” she said. “The idea is to keep people independent.”
DiNardo said she had some problems with her party’s approach to social program.
“My party talks about handling research in a moral way,” she said. “But what we’re talking about here are petri dishes and something that would be thrown away anyway since they are the excess from the in vitro fertilization process.”
A defining issue of this campaign
State Sen. Majority Leader Bernard Kenny, who along with Assembly Speaker Albio Sires led the move in the New Jersey Legislature earlier this year to get approval for research in the state, said embryonic stem cell research is one of the defining issues in the presidential campaign.
“Senator Kerry is taking the lead from New Jersey and California on this,” Kenny said. “New Jersey has always been very progressive in health care and putting people first. Stem cell research promises to open new vistas in science and technology, and possibly find cures for diseases that have plagued humankind.”
Kenny said he wants his children and his grandchildren to have the best that science can offer when it comes to treating diseases.
“My children and grandchildren and everyone else in the future generations should have every opportunity to be as free from these diseases as possible,” he said.
Opponents of the research have, at times, resorted to misinformation in order to work up the emotions of the public. “From the beginning of time, human history had to fight misinformation,” he said. “There was a time when it was taught that Europe was center of the universe and the earth was flat. But we have a moral obligation to explore science to put it to man’s use.”
Assemblyman Lou Manzo (D-31st Dist.) said New Jersey and Hudson County have become the pioneers in the movement to seek stem cell research, providing a model other states like California can follow. He called the presidential election one of the most important in history on this issue alone.
Hoboken Councilman Tony Soares, who has a form of dwarfism, has been a proponent of stem cell research.
“This isn’t about me,” he said. “The reach is too late for me. This is about everyone that will suffer in the future.”
Soares sharply criticized opponents of stem cell research, saying that if the logic used against the research was carried through, then many of the medical miracles performed today would not be legal.
“We would not have organ transplants,” he said.
For Paul J. Byrne of Jersey City, the chairman of Right to Hope, one of the key lobbyists for stem cell research in the state, the full impact of the situation hit him when he was talking to his niece, who had tried to show him something she had done.
Byrne is blind as a result of diabetes.
“She had forgotten I was blind,” he said. “But then she said she would show me later when I got better. She didn’t understand that I was never going to get better.”