WASHINGTON DC, USA, Oct. 29, 2004 (CNA) - Mel
Gibson has come out strongly against a California ballot measure that would
permit state funding for embryonic stem-cell research and has urged California's
citizens to vote no on the ballot measure next Tuesday.
The Catholic actor says he has an "ethical problem" with
Proposition 71, the $3-billion bond measure to fund human embryonic stem-cell
research.
The director of one of this year’s box office successes, “The Passion of
the Christ,” appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" yesterday and
said he shouldn't have to pay taxes to help fund the cloning of human embryos.
Gibson told “Good Morning America” that he called Arnold Schwarzenegger
the previous evening to talk about the issue and that the governor told him he
had to make a speech and would call him back.
Speaking on camera, he said: "Well, Arnold, I'm still waiting for your
call."
This past summer, the Republican Party of California voted to oppose
Proposition 71 because they said California cannot afford the $3 billion in
interest payments on state bonds that would bring the true cost of Proposition
71 to $6 billion.
Schwarzenegger recently broke ranks with the Republican Party to announce his
support for the measure.
The Christian Coalition of America commended Gibson for publicly expressing
his strong stand against the ballot.
A National Review article this week also stated that near the end of his
life, actor Christopher Reeve, who became a paraplegic after an accidental fall,
“apparently began to realize that embryonic stem cells were not the magic
bullet he had assumed them to be.”
The report stated that the actor, famous for his film roles as Superman, felt
that “far from claiming that this avenue offered ‘biological miracles,’ or
was the best or only hope for patients like him, he felt they were ‘not able
to do much’ for him.”