Don't Just Take My Word on Prop 2: Another Body Chronic Speaks Out

The Body Chronic makes friends with other chronically-minded folks. One of the longest running chronic friends I've had in person (and I mean this in a good "chronic" way), is the subject of this video, put forward by the folks at Cure Michigan. It speaks louder than I possibly could.

Proposal 2 In Michigan--Stem Cell Research: An Issue for The Body Chronic

I originally posted this on my politics and pop culture blog, Only Baggage You Can Bring. As the election draws nearer, I feel the need to publicize it more.

I expect a lot off bullshit when it comes to ballot proposals. So you can imagine that it's hard to surprise me anymore.

Guess what? I'm surprised. I never thought there would be this much controversy over saying yes to medical research and a better quality of life.

Over the past few weeks, the opposition to Proposal 2 people have been fighting against common sense, dignity and just plan goodness. Mostly funded by the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, the No to 2 people have been making such ridiculous and patently false claims that it makes Richard Nixon look like a saint.

Here are the facts from Cure Michigan:

• Proposal 2 will provide for safe and ethical research as permitted under federal law;
• Proposal 2 will keep in force Michigan’s ban against cloning; and,
• Proposal 2 will allow doctors and researchers to use voluntarily donated leftover embryos for finding cures and saving lives. These leftover embryos are currently thrown away as medical waste.

Why is Proposal 2 necessary in Michigan? Because under the current state law, Michigan criminalizes the use of new embryonic stem cells to find cures—researchers can be fined up to $10 million and imprisoned up to 10 years. That means researchers at our top institutions and even private medical research facilities are being forced to make a choice--research and jail or losing time and money.

The No to 2 people are right about one thing--this is a moral issue. This is an issue about whether you want people with severe spinal injuries to have the hope to walk again. This is an issue about whether you want people with chronic illnesses, like me, to live a pain free life. This is an issue about whether you want people with Alzheimer's and Dementia, like Nana Grace, to have a second chance at their golden years. So if you believe in those things, you believe in voting yes to Proposal 2.

Part of the problem now is that people are being fed these lies about Proposal 2 and it's alleged potential for raising tax revenues, allowing unethical use of human embryos and so on--all false claims mind you. The reason this matters--the No to 2 people have more money and captive audiences.

So what can you do? You can donate. You can host a yard sign. You can speak to your family, friends and collegues. But do something and do it now. This is our future. This is our fight.

Don't let us wake up November 5 with a Michigan that is technologically inhibited and without hope. Donate here. And vote YES on Proposal 2.

Daily Inspiration 10/28/08

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence. -Daniel Hudson Burnham

(In honor of the second anniversary of the death of my grandmother, my Nana, Ida.)

Daily Inspiration: 10/20/08

My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty. -Mahatma Gandhi

Daily Inspiration: 10/17/08

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

-Winston Churchill

Daily Inspiration: 10/16/08

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
-Mark Twain

(I don't know why, but whenever I feel the need for some wisdom, I turn to Mark Twain.)

Daily Inspiration: 10/15/08

Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.
- Hunter S. Thompson

Possibly the Biggest Case of a Body Chronic Ever

Some of you may have heard of the so-called Tree Man--a man in Indonesia who looks as if he is turning into a tree. For years doctors have been puzzled over his condition, wondering what turns his limbs into veritable tree trunks.

It turns out that he too has a chronic illness. He has an immuno deficiency of sorts which led to the HPV-2 virus taking over his body and using it as its own little chemistry set.

His story is unlike many of ours with chronic illness in that it is so visible to the naked eye. But it is like our stories in that the diagnosis was extremely difficult to find. Food for thought.

For more information, check out Treeman: Search for the Cure on Discovery Health, Sunday at 9 p.m.

Daily Inspiration: 10/3/08

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. -Confucious

On the occasion of the day after a big tumble for me.

Health Care and The 2008 Election--Issues that Matter

Check out my sister blog, Only Baggage You Can Bring all week this week for issues about health care and the election. So far we have discussed the candidate's proposals for health care coverage and world HIV/AIDS policies. We'll also be discussing stem cell research and medicare.

Come join the discussion!

Daily Inspiration: 10/2/08

When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the administration... We object to bringing this question down to the level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest over a principle. -William Jennings Bryan

Daily Inspiration: 10/1/08

People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.
-Chuck Palahniuk