Mel Gibson made a last-minute appeal to California voters Monday to knock down Proposition 71, which he says will fund cloning and destroy life.
“I think the biotech companies are trying to pull a fast one on us,” said Gibson during an interview with Dr. James Dobson on Focus on the Family’s Nov. 1 radio program. Gibson’s comments come days after he spoke out against the measure on “Good Morning America.”
“Prop. 71 will fund cloning and it will enable us to create a constitutional right to conduct stem cell research using cloned embryos,” he said.
But supporters of the initiative are not telling the whole truth, according to Gibson, director of “Passion of the Christ.”
“They’re saying it’s not about cloning,” he said. “That’s an outright lie.”
“It’s the same process they used with Dolly the sheep. She was full of problems. She’s dead now,” said Gibson.
If passed, the measure will fund $3 billion in state bonds to California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to regulate stem cell research. Interest payments would bring the true cost of the measure to $6 billion.
While both proponents and opponents of the measure believe stem cell research will develop treatments and cures to diseases and injuries, the two sides support different types of stem cell research.
Backers of Prop. 71 are in favor of embryonic stem cell research which results in the destruction of the embryo.
Many opponents to the measure, including pro-family and religious conservative groups, disagree with destroying embryos to harvest their stem cells. Instead, they opt for adult stem cell research and umbilical cord stem cell research.
“The true promise for treatment and cures lies with adult stem-cells, which do not require the cloning of human embryos nor the destruction of those embryos,” Dobson said in a statement.
“The National Institutes of Health reports at least 74 diseases treatable by adult stem-cells. Sacrificing the tiniest members of the human family on the altar of science – and questionable science at best – is nothing short of state-funded cannibalism.”
“They have not in 23 years since 1981 of experimentation with embryonic stem cells produced a single human intervention,” said Gibson. “They have only produced rejection, mutation and cancer. That’s all they’ve done. It’s bad science. It’s being dishonestly being put on the 71.”
