A Message From Local 212 President
Michael Rosen:
 October
29, 2006
Many of you know my ex-wife and former
MATC English instructor, Helen Robertson.
Helen who suffers from MS and Parkinson’s
Disease is wheelchair bound. Last month she had to move
from her home into a Community Based Residential Facility.
These diseases have robbed Helen
of the things that give life meaning. In May, she was simply
too ill to attend our youngest daughter's college graduation
just as she was too ill to attend senior night when our
oldest daughter was honored at Ohio State. Helen will never
be able to walk her children down the aisle on their wedding
day or take her grandchildren to the park. Illness forced
her to retire prematurely from MATC and abandon her passion
for writing and teaching! Her loss was also our students'
and community's loss.
Helen's life has been destroyed by this disease. In one
of her more despondent moments, she recently asked: "Why
did this happen to me?” and said:” Sometimes,
I think I would be better off dead."
Embryonic stem cell research, scientists believe, may provide
a cure for medical issues like MS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s,
Juvenile Diabetes and spinal cord injuries. Opponents of
the research, like President Bush and Mark Green, want to
limit the research to adult stem cells which have less potential.
They say that they are protecting embryos from which embryonic
stem cells are extracted. But they ignore the fact that
these very embryos will be destroyed when they are discarded
by the fertility clinics which supply them.
It might be too late for this research to help Helen. Her
diseases may have progressed too far too fast. But it is
nothing less than immoral to oppose or limit this important
research that provides so much hope to so many who have
suffered so much.
The opposition to embryonic stem
cell research has historic parallels. Galileo, the great
Italian scientist, was called to Rome in 1633, and tried
for the crime of heresy for teaching that the earth revolves
around the sun. The aged Galileo, in his 70's, was taken
down into the dungeons of the church and shown the instruments
of torture that were going to be used on him if he did not
recant. Fearing the torture, and that he might share the
fate of Giordano Bruno, whom the church burned at the stake
a generation earlier for the same crime, Galileo recanted
the truth. He was confined to his home under house arrest,
neither allowed to leave or to receive visitors, for the
last seven years of his life.
The persecution of Galileo, however,
did not end with the end of Galileo's life. His heirs were
refused permission to bury the great scientist in his family
tomb at Santa Croce.
It wasn't until 1832 that Galileo's work was removed from
the list of banned books that Catholics were forbidden to
read. 200 years after the trial... and well after Sir Isaac
Newton established the truth of the theory!
In 1992, Pope John Paul II formally apologized for the persecution
of Galileo.
Those who oppose embryonic stem cell research are no more
right or moral than those who attempted to silence Galileo
centuries ago. They are extremists pure and simple. Their
twenty first century inquisition against researching potential
cures for debilitating diseases should not be tolerated.
Governor Doyle has consistently supported stem cell research
and Wisconsin has been a leader in the field. Nancy Reagan,
whose husband, President Ronald Reagan, suffered from Alzheimer’s,
is a strong, proponent of embryonic stem cell research.
When you vote in November, please remember that Governor
Doyle has consistently supported stem cell research and
think about your former colleague and AFT member, Helen.
If that doesn't convince you, think about an old Italian
scientist named Galileo and watch the sun set. Then do the
right thing.
Michael Rosen, President
Archived Messages...
May 22,
2007
January
16th, 2007
October
29, 2006
August 4,
2006
May 16,
2006
April 28,
2006
August 23,
2005
May 15,
2005
April 15,
2005
March 11,
2005
February
11, 2005
January
18, 2005
September
29, 2004
Michael
Rosen's Speech to the MATC Board - September 29, 2004
Welcome
back, August 2004
"Jobs
report paints bleak picture for the nation",
Michael Rosen's editorial in the August 21, 2004 Journal
Sentinel
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