Gibson goes public, opposes California’s embryonic stem-cell research ballot measure

Washington D.C., Oct 28, 2004 / 22:00 pm

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.”