NOT EVEN SIX DEGREES. While Brother Pierce expounded on the absurdity of the Heaton-Caviezel-Suppan (et al) television spot thrown together in response to Michael J. Fox's latest star turn as an advocate for stem-cell research, my ears pricked up at the mention of the name of Patricia Heaton, whose face graces the misleading Feminists for Life ad that has run on this web site off and on for the last month. As I reported here last week, Feminists for Life is closely allied with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and took funding from the bishops for its first ad campaign.* Now comes this television spot featuring Heaton that makes a case against a Missouri ballot measure, Amendment 2, that would, according to a pro-amendment editorial in the Kansas City Star, "guarantee Missouri scientists the right to conduct all forms of stem-cell research permitted under federal law." The ad, will air tonight during the World Series, during which Suppan is slated to pitch. The ad, which falsely claims the amendment to be a veiled attempt to constitutionally protect human cloning, is sponsored by a group called Missourians Against Human Cloning, whose spokesperson is Cathy Cleaver Ruse. Ms. Ruse, currently a fellow at the Family Research Council, served until 2004 as the director of planning and information for the Pro-Life Secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). That post is now held by Deirdre McQuade, who came to the bishops from her position as spokesperson for Feminists for LIfe. Working in coalition with Missourians Against Human Cloning is the Missouri Catholic Conference, a group that so cherishes the uniqueness of human life that it drafted the 1999 Missouri bill, later struck down in court, that would have categorized the killing of a doctor who performs abortion a justifiable homicide.
* This sentence fixed.
--Adele M. Stan
