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Articles & Remarks

Urgent: Therapeutic Cloning Bills in Congress

They Heard Your Voice
Legislative Update from CRPF Senior VP and Director of
Government Relations, Michael Manganiello

Two weeks ago the House of Representatives exhaustively debated H.R. 534 (the Weldon Bill banning all forms of cloning) and its alternative H.R. 801 (the Greenwood Bill which allowed for therapeutic cloning). After a lengthy discussion, which included scientific, ethical, and social issues, H.R. 534 passed—-banning all types of cloning.

While this is an initial blow to the possibility for therapeutic cloning treatments, this is not a defeat for the Hope Network. Your voices were heard and you made a difference in the votes of many Representatives. Because of your involvement and your enthusiasm, we had more champions of therapeutic cloning on Capitol Hill than ever before!

We now move to the Senate debate. Thousands of Hope Network members sent emails and letters to their Representatives. We want to double those numbers. We want to flood the Senate with your opinions on medical progress. If each of you sent this email to one friend, our voice would be that much louder and our presence that much more influential.

Simply tell your friend to click here, sign up and send the prewritten email/letter.

We promise to keep educating, keep informing, and keep working towards medical progress.

You can easily see your effect in the most recent Hope Network victory—-President Bush’s signing of the 2003 spending package, which includes the final stage of doubling the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) budget from $13.6 billion in 1998 to $27.1 billion in 2003. Your emails, letters, and phone calls made a difference that will impact hundreds of thousands of Americans affected by disability. For more on this issue and others, click here for the Hope Network Headquarters.

The Hope Network has proven itself to be an effective voice for the medical research and disability community. We are gaining ground and going strong. However, we will need your continued support throughout the year as the therapeutic cloning debate resumes, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Act is reintroduced, and other challenges arise.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and dedication!

Michael Manganiello
Director of Government Relations

The Hope Network

Letter from Jack Flynn

Nanette Frank, a long time friend of the Flynns and mother of Evan, Pete's friend since childhood, wrote this prayer soon after Pete's accident. The comfort it brings to Debbie and Pete is immeasurable.

My Prayer Since that Day

Since that day, I wake up and the sun's smile is veiled in an uncommon softness?
As my senses engage I recognize my days are different now, dewed in sadness.

Then my heart cries with it's new pain; a pain that lingers like smoke after the flame.
It follows me, wafting through my thoughts; my days are duller now; not the same.

In the midst of my busy day, the pain burns my soul; too intense, I am halted to tears.
Seeking respite, I must breathe in the sadness; let it come, grasp it, then throw it to You in my prayers.

Each minute, each hour, each day the pain circles around me, suffocating me in gloom.
You guide me to accept it, You tell me to welcome it; only then can You help me overcome.

As gold is heated it loses it's own strength; the strength melts with the grime, leaving shine.
The pain sears my heart, my self melts away. I turn to You; peace is what I find.

Since that day my prayers linger to You like a hunger I had forgotten, a privilege neglected.
This pain has rekindled my soul, my days are different now; embraced and protected.

When my heart cries with the pain since that day,
I know You are watching; You have been calling me back to pray.

Each prayer I now lift carries the love for the one who lives in pain since that day.
I pray for his acceptance, to begin to overcome, as he turns to You to pray.

You formed our innermost parts; you gave us breath, and knew us in our mother's womb.
You are Almighty! You are our Savior! You are the Victor! With You we overcome.

Father, I know you hear my special prayer for the friend who is loved so dear.
Please send you loving presence to embrace him; give back his smiles to replace his tears.

As we look only up and see only the tangled disarray of the tapestry of our lives,
Help us to remember: Our Creator, our Savior is weaving perfectly on the other side.

For Peter, since that day.

Amen.

Letter from Pete's Cousin

North County Times: Thursday, August 8, 2002

Community helps family in need

Being a single parent is trying under the best of conditions. But for Escondido resident Debbie Flynn, "under the best conditions" will no longer apply.

Her life changed radically a month ago. On July 6, when her son Pete, 20, was out with friends, Pete and another passenger were seriously injured in an accident on Ash Avenue. Pete suffered a spinal cord injury that resulted in a quadriplegic paralysis. The other passenger, Corey, was badly hurt but is expected to recover. The driver was not seriously injured.

Pete is able to eat without a feeding tube, and though he is able to move his biceps, he has no sensation in his arms. His prognosis is difficult. His life, and that of his family, has been permanently changed.

His mother, Debbie, is at Pete's bedside during the day, and his grandfather stayed with him at night during the first few weeks. But sooner or later, life for the Flynn family will have to return to normal- as normal as life can be under the conditions.

Debbie will have to go back to work, and Pete's grandfather, who lives in Florida, will come as often as he can. That's why I'm asking your help.

Debbie is a manufacturer's representative for Luscombe Engineering. She coordinates sales of electronic component through local distributors. The local chapter of the Electronic Representative's Association has come to her aid. Co-workers, customers and competitors are all contributing to help her family.

A golf tournament and dinner will be held on Sept. 9. The goal is to raise $50,000 to purchase a van equipped with a wheelchair lift.

The "For Pete's Sake" golf tournament will be held at the Escondido Country Club. Tee time is 12:30 p.m. The $150 donation includes lunch, dinner, green fees and golf cart rental.

Forty-five golfers have registered so far. The sponsors hope to sign up 120.

In addition, hole sponsors are needed. Dinner and lunch will be offered for non-golfers; the cost of dinner is $40.

For more details and updates on Pete's condition, visit the Web site www.peteflynn.org.

Information on the tournament is available from Bret Gann at (760) 598-7418 or bret@falconsales.com.

I have been impressed by how the workers in the electronic industry in North County have gone to the aid of one of their own. I hope that benevolence will spread. I am sure the Flynn family appreciates the support the have received from their community.

By Greg Scharf
Times Advocate