"Every word is a lie," says Sean Morrison, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology. Furthermore, "it's a blatant lie.
"They've decided they're going to make things up to frighten and confuse voters -- to make them say, 'I'm not sure, so I guess I'll vote no.' "
Neal Rubin at the Detroit News counts the ways these ads have lied to the voters of Michigan, starting off with the reason why Right to Life and the Michigan Catholic Conference are resorting to these tactics and pouring all this money into these deceptive ads.
But you can't sway mainstream voters by saying you consider embryonic stem cell research to be pretty much the same thing as abortion, because mainstream voters don't.
So instead, the commercials pretend that an English research project is trying to breed mutant man-cows, when in fact it's looking into cell behavior by fusing cow eggs with the nuclei of human skin cells and then destroying the end product within 14 days.
Or an almost-familiar deep voice warns about irresponsible research while the screen shows news clippings about Tuskegee, in which the government infamously denied treatment for advanced syphilis to 399 black Alabama sharecroppers so it could take notes on how they deteriorated.
Or they show the looming facades of businesses with names like HumanHarvest and HumanDouble Inc. -- even though Michigan law specifically prohibits human cloning, and the proposal would continue the ban.
Rubin also points out what we have said before - both presidential candidates have indicated that they will loosen the restrictions on this research, and that more federal funding might be on the way. Michigan would be the first state to say "no" to this if Prop 2 fails, and that keeps us in the company of North and South Dakota, Louisiana and Arkansas, the other four states with highly restrictive laws. Not to knock them or anything, but they are not regarded as top destination states for biomedical research and the jobs that go with it.
Don't keep Michigan in the Dark Ages - vote Yes on 2. Here is one of the latest ads from Cure Michigan: