Otherwise Known as the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative; Embryo Vivisection and Elusive Promises Act.

Unable to attract private investors, and shut out of federal dollars, the biotech industry has partnered with Hollywood and the disease lobby in a widely publicized attempt to fund human cloning and embryonic stem cell research with taxpayer dollars.

This November voters will find the "California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative" on the ballot. This is a deceptively labeled $3 billion bond initiative, one which amends the California state Constitution.

To be on the ballot, proponents are required to secure 600,000 signatures. But thanks to a number of wealthy backers who bankrolled the campaign to obtain signatures, the number will soon be met and surpassed.

There are multiple layers of misrepresentation in the ballot language. For example, proponents pretend that the measure actually bans the use of funds for human cloning.

In fact it merely constrains "human reproductive cloning." So-called "therapeutic cloning" would not be banned. Both techniques produce cloned human embryos. With the latter, however, there is no intention to allow the birth of a human being.

The initiative would fund any research or therapy involving human cloning as long as it is not what it calls "human reproductive cloning." This is defined as "the practice of creating or attempting to create a human being by transferring the nucleus from a human cell into an egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed for the purpose of implanting the resulting product in a uterus to initiate a pregnancy." As a result, if passed the initiative would create a constitutional "right to conduct stem cell research which includes research involving ..." embryonic stem cell research and the cloning of human embryos for research and destruction.

In 2002, the California legislature made permanent a policy that allows for human cloning, provided that every human embryo or fetus that is created is killed, but funding has been scarce.