The proposed cloning amendment on the Missouri ballot this November 7th is perhaps the boldest attempt ever to highjack the legitimate functions of representative government in Missouri.
Its basic mechanism is a language structure that is designed to defeat the casual reader by turning reasonable inferences about the text on their heads in other subsections.
It completely abandons the implied obligations of full, clear and unambiguous disclosure where parties are trying to negotiate a legal agreement, in this case a Constitutional Amendment. In every material feature, the proponents of the initiative have tried to conceal what they really want.
The amendment creates a constitutional right to clone and destroy human embryos for research purposes, while pretending to ban cloning. This is accomplished by using a false definition of cloning. To present the citizens of Missouri with this false definition of cloning that departs from all recognized science is completely misleading.
So a very few people with enormous resources have concocted this scheme because they could never achieve their goals in an open, honest, straightforward discussion. They are attempting to buy a constitutional amendment whose provisions are completely detrimental to the citizens of Missouri, who have expressed their respect for human beings and human life through the legitimate processes of legislative government over a long period of time.
A careful parsing of the initiative reveals that its proponents, who will become its beneficiaries, will have completely insulated themselves and their cloning practices in an alternative legal reality where: