Burkee Responds to Pro-Life Wisconsin
In response to this post, former candidate Jim Burkee has this to say:
Dear Owen
I’m writing in response to a September 26th letter you posted from Matt Sande accusing me of lying, “obfuscation,” and “insincerity” regarding my approach to stem cell research during my recent campaign for US Congress.
Mr. Sande contended in his letter that “then-congressional candidate Jim Burkee called me at Pro-Life Wisconsin (PLW) to discuss at length his positions on various life issues.” He then described a conversation we never had, concluding with, “Burkee enthusiastically responded that he would be happy to fill out our questionnaire and return it to us promptly.”
His letter to you continued: “Burkee’s contention that he never spoke to anybody at PLW is untrue. We had a substantive, 15 minute phone conversation in July.” Mr. Sande then concluded that I contradicted myself in interviews with John Torinus and Charlie Sykes by expressing my conditional support of embryonic stem cell research. Finally, he propagated this story not only on your web site, but in a conversation with State Senator Glenn Grothman – who subsequently posted his own letter accusing me of telling “different people different things” (note as well that Grothman claims to have known me for five months, when in fact he has known me since May 2006, when he first began joining my Friday political lunch group).
Here is what really happened:
On July 8th, my campaign director, Tyler Williams, sent an e-mail at 12:27 pm to Pro-Life Wisconsin. Please note that he sent the e-mail from his account, clearly identified himself as Tyler Williams (he began with, “My name is Tyler Williams….”), and asked for a congressional survey. His signature then provided his phone number, 262.365.1079. (see attachment 1)
At 3:27 pm that same day, Mr. Sande called Tyler Williams from the Pro-Life Wisconsin office (262.796.1111) and talked with him for exactly 30 minutes (we found the record of the call in our Sprint phone records, see attachment 2).
In fact, while Mr. Sande was talking with Mr. Williams, I was on my phone (262.573.9462) having another conversation (see attachment 3).
Clearly, Mr. Sande received an e-mail from Tyler Williams, he called Tyler Williams talked with Tyler Williams on Mr. Williams’ phone.
I am not questioning Mr. Sande’s integrity here. Perhaps something from his notes left him with a different recollection. But my account, and that of Mr. Williams, is clearly accurate, as demonstrated by the evidence: Mr. Sande talked with Tyler Williams, and never with me. In fact, after Mr. Williams finished his conversation with Mr. Sande, he suggested we arrange a meeting with Mr. Sande to ask for their support. After studying Pro-Life Wisconsin’s positions, however, I decided not to (it appeared to me that Pro-Life Wisconsin opposes contraception – a position I disagree with. I also do not agree with their position on all stem cell research).
Tyler Williams is a man of integrity and honesty who worked diligently for my campaign for over a year. He is now in St. Louis, studying for the ministry at Concordia Seminary. A prodigious note-taker, he still has notes of his conversation with Mr. Sande.
I contacted Mr. Sande on the 26th to ask why he would make such an accusation: He works for an organization that seems to promote Christian principles, and yet in this instance he violated a basic principle – one articulated Biblically, and one I work to honor – that disagreements should first be aired privately (not to mention a commandment on bearing false witness).. Instead of having the courtesy to call me (he would have had to call Tyler, since Mr. Sande didn’t have my phone number), he instead slandered my good name in conversations with Glenn Grothman – who then compounded the canard by repeating it publicly on several occasions – without once attempting to verify its accuracy. Finally, he repeated the defamation in a letter to you, Owen, referenced above.
Why am I taking the time to address this accusation? Because I place a very high premium on my reputation for honesty and integrity. I teach my children the principle that your yes should mean yes, and your no should mean no – and I do my best to live by that principle.
Because of Mr. Sande’s defamation, Glenn Grothman told people around our district that I was not to be trusted – a crime multiplied when Boots and Sabers published Grothman’s accusations, and talk radio hosts repeated them on the air.
I may have lost the September 9th primary, but I take great pride in having run a campaign with honesty and integrity, refusing to stoop to the depths so many campaigns today do. In fact, one of my criticisms of my opponent was that he paid so little attention to the appearance of impropriety. So I take pride in having set that example, and in knowing that I gave everything to what I considered myself called to do, with integrity.
Mr. Sande has refused to retract his false accusation, which is why I am now responding with this letter.
And it’s a real shame. I have great respect for the work all pro-life organizations do. I am fervently pro-life, and want nothing more than to see a culture of life promoted by our nation’s leadership – and an end to the millions of abortions that have robbed us of an entire generation of Americans. Unfortunately, in this instance, Mr. Sande put his own personal interests ahead of those of his organization, and of the movement.
Thank you for your time, Owen.
Jim Burkee
—
Dr. Jim Burkee
http://www.jimburkee.comPaid for by Jim Burkee for Congress
The supporting documentation was included.
Just the letter and all the supporting documentation from Burkee. Am I missing something or does Boots & Sabre owe him an apology for printing the letter from Sande that was false or are you waiting for Sande to send his documentation in?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 01, 2008 at 2023 hrs
Partisan slap fight. Fun.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 01, 2008 at 2044 hrs
Burkee needs to grow up and move on. He’s a bitter hack loser. Nobody cares. He has no good name and now he’s got little more than a political crater to show for it.
It was a good lesson for a few people who think they know what they are doing though. Isn’t that right Mr. Gielow and Mr. Gottlieb?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 02, 2008 at 0007 hrs
interesting that no one form Pro-Life Wisconsin is willing to own up to Matt Sande’s comical error here. Do the nutty folks at Pro-Life Wisconsin ever respond when questioned, or are supposed to accept at face value every whacky pronouncement which they issue? Consider the questions posed in a thread below which Matt also continues to ignore:
When will the hypocrites at Pro-Life Wisconsin seek introduction of a bill to ban in vitro fertilization in Wisconsin? All of the fertilized eggs used to create embyonic stem cell research in Wisconsin have come from IVF clinics. These fertilized eggs were otherwise destined for medical waste incinerators. The truth is that thousands of fertlilized eggs are discarded all across the country every year.
If these indeed be little people, as Matt Sande claims, then this be murder, and yet Pro-Life Wisconsin has NEVER sought introduction of legislation to ban this immoral practice. Zip, zilch, nada.
Why such rank hypocrisy, Matt? Why don’t you stand up for these little frozen people?
Matt knows that only a couple dozen fertilized eggs have been used to create emtryonic stem cell lines in Wisconsin. Yet over the last 10 years tens of thousands of fertilized eggs have been incinerated. If embryonic stem cell research is a sin, what about the thousands of little people similarly bludgeoned?
It’s time for Matt and the other whackos at Pro-Life Wisconsin to stand up for these little people!
Posted by wally on September 26, 2008 at 2053 hrs
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 03, 2008 at 0857 hrs
“Burkee needs to grow up and move on. He’s a bitter hack loser. Nobody cares. He has no good name and now he’s got little more than a political crater to show for it.”
So someone is slandered by a lie, and the response is to slander him again, by someone who is so proud of his stance that he hides behind a fake email address. Class, real class.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2008 at 1318 hrs
Wally raises an interesting point, that being how a group as wildly ideological as PLW avoids pushing on IVF for blatantly political reasons.
PLW definitely opposes IVF and birth control - a cursory review of their website will tell you as much. And their choice to not push on these issues is entirely pragmatic, a decision many of us would find less laughable if PLW was ever pragmatic on anything else, ever. But they’re not.
I wonder if the folks at PLW ever noticed the teddy bear I used to keep on top of my desk with the JDRF t-shirt all those times they would stop by to talk my ear off? It was just so hard to take them seriously, listening to them carp about stem cell research while refusing to push an IVF/birth control ban with the same energy or zeal. At least stem cell research has the potential to help people. IVF/birth control both end up destroying embryos with absolutely no upside.
PLW represents a viewpoint, and one that certainly is worth hearing in the political sphere. They do represent a sizable minority of Wisconsin residents. However, just like with many lobbyists, it’s a good thing they get paid for their talk and not for their achievements. Lots of talk, little action of any real consequence.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on October 04, 2008 at 1629 hrs
Nine days and counting since I posted my questions for Matt Sande and still no response. And it’s been four days since Owen posted Jim Burkee’s refutation of Matt’s libelous accusations.
Step up and be a man (if you can), Matt—respond!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 05, 2008 at 2028 hrs
When will Matt Sande admit that he and the fruitcakes at Pro-Life Wisconsin are flaming hypocrites? Here’s a Los Angeles Times article which provides more information on embryonic stem cell research and IVF than Matt knows or is willing to admit!
From the Los Angeles TimesCOLUMN ONE
Infertility patients caught in the legal, moral and scientific embryo debate
Tough decisions about what to do with unused embryos lead to a bigger question: When does life begin?
By Shari Roan
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 6, 2008
Six years of frustration and heartbreak. That’s how Gina Rathan recalls her attempts to become pregnant.Finally, she and her husband, Cheddi, conceived a daughter, now 3, through in vitro fertilization. About a year later, she became pregnant with a second child, naturally. Their family was complete.
Then, a year ago, the Fountain Valley couple received a bill reminding them that their infertility journey wasn’t quite over. They owed $750 to preserve three frozen embryos they’d created but hadn’t used.
“I don’t see them as not being life yet,” says Gina Rathan, 42, a pharmaceutical sales representative. “I thought, ‘How can I discard them when I have a beautiful child from that IVF cycle?’ “
Many other former infertility patients also appear to be grappling over the fate of embryos they have no plans to use: An estimated 500,000 embryos are in cryopreservation in the United States.
As with the Rathans, this unexpected conundrum often arises well after the infertility crisis has passed, triggering impassioned and highly personal debates about the science and ethics of human life. The discussion boils down to a fundamental question: What is this icy clump of cells smaller than a grain of sand?
Across the country, people with less personal stakes in the matter are asking that question as well.
Colorado voters will decide in November whether to amend the state’s constitution to assert that an embryo is a person. Indiana lawmakers have proposed legislation that would allow abandoned embryos to be adopted for implantation by another couple. New Jersey legislators have moved to allow unused embryos to become wards of the state. And Georgia and West Virginia are considering legislation that would give embryos “personhood” status.
Although these proposals are sponsored in large part by abortion opponents, infertility patients nationwide—whose feelings about abortion run the gamut—are finding themselves ensnared in a debate about when life begins.
“They are in the middle of this ideological war, although they may not be aware they are in the middle of a war,” says Renee Whitley, co-chairwoman of the national advocacy committee for Resolve, an organization supporting people with infertility. “This is the politics of embryos.”
Couples with leftover frozen embryos have three choices: discard them, donate to research or donate to another couple for pregnancy. The default option is to leave the embryos in a vat of minus-310-degree liquid nitrogen, paying for the storage and deferring the decision; in some cases, their children or other relatives may someday have to decide what to do with a most peculiar inheritance.
Embryo-protection legislation could ultimately winnow those options and, say doctors and consumer advocates for the infertile, possibly limit future infertility treatments.
“This is taking a pretty private decision and placing it squarely in the public’s eye,” says Nanette Elster, director of the Health Law Institute at DePaul University in Chicago.
Freezing excess embryos is a common strategy for in vitro fertilization. To make embryos, a doctor injects a woman with potent hormones to produce eggs. These are then harvested in a surgical procedure. The eggs are mixed with sperm in the laboratory, and some of the developing embryos are transferred into the uterus. A single cycle with fresh embryos costs more than $15,000, often not covered by insurance.
Subsequent attempts at pregnancy are less costly if frozen embryos are on hand, and the supply of extras spares a woman another round of harsh drugs to produce eggs. About half the people who undergo in vitro fertilization end up with one or more frozen embryos.
But no one can predict how many embryos will be produced and used. And as the success of the treatment has improved over the last two decades, doctors are now transferring fewer embryos to avoid multiple births.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 07, 2008 at 1759 hrs
[Part 2]
Meanwhile, the glut of stored embryos grows and more families find themselves in a position some liken to playing God.
“They are wrestling with how to think of embryos. A person? Nothing? Something in between?” says Dawn Davenport, an adoption researcher who has an online radio show and a website called Creating a Family.
Infertility clinics report that they lose contact with about 15% to 25% of families with frozen embryos. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s guidelines, a clinic can consider embryos abandoned and dispose of them if five years have passed without contact with the couple and if significant efforts have been made to reach the couple. But few doctors dispose of the embryos, says Dr. Richard J. Paulson, chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
“To my knowledge, no one in the United States has ever done that,” he says. “We’re all paranoid that a couple will show up the next day and say they want their embryos.”
The federal government supports, via funding, only one option: adoption to another couple for pregnancy. In a highly publicized event at the White House in May 2005, President Bush posed for pictures with children born from adopted embryos—sometimes called “snowflake adoptions,” referring to the fact that the embryos are frozen and unique. And the Department of Health and Human Services funded a three-day conference in May to promote this alternative.
About 1,000 babies have been born in the U.S. from embryo adoption since it became available 10 years ago, said Ron Stoddart, who founded the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program, based in Fullerton.
However, research by Anne Drapkin Lyerly, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University, as well as other surveys, have found that most families prefer not to donate embryos for adoption. In a paper published last year, of 1,020 couples with frozen embryos, 22% said they were somewhat or very likely to donate to another couple. Slightly more said they would probably thaw and discard them. Almost half said they would donate them to science, including for use in stem cell research.
Donating to research appears to represent to many couples a kind of peaceful middle ground.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 07, 2008 at 1801 hrs
[Part 3]
Human embryos are the primary source of stem cells, and the uptick in stem cell research has fostered a growing demand for donated embryos. Although such research destroys the embryos, the broader effort is aimed at curing disease. This goal resonates with couples who have endured reproductive health problems, says Lee Rubin Collins, co-chairwoman of Resolve’s national advocacy committee. “Reproductive medicine is about creating life, not ending it,” she says.
Angela and Dave Casella tried for three years to have a baby. Using in vitro fertilization, Angela Casella became pregnant with twins on two occasions but miscarried both times. Devastated, the Huntington Beach couple took a year to grieve and think about their options. They decided to adopt a child but still had to contend with a single embryo left in cryopreservation.
They chose to donate it to research.
“We felt maybe this was the embryo that was going to close the deal for science,” Angela Casella, a Pilates instructor, says of the embryo. “Maybe she didn’t grow up to be a scientist or a doctor or anything you would want for your child. But maybe she would still do some good for the world.”
Other couples who want to donate to science find that researchers are not nearby, that their infertility clinic isn’t associated with a research program and thus can’t facilitate donations, or that their state prohibits research on embryos.
“There are tremendous obstacles to being able to donate to research,” Collins says. “The research community hasn’t caught up with the desire of many patients to contribute.”
Infertility patients may support embryo use in research, but much of the nation appears to be more conflicted.
No federal funding is available for embryonic stem cell research, and only eight states—including California—fund such research within their borders. Last year, Bush vetoed a bill that would have allowed federal funding for new stem cell lines derived from fertility clinic embryos.
In a survey of 1,003 adults in the U.S. published in the spring issue of the New Atlantis, about half the respondents said destroying embryos is unethical because they’re humans, but 41%—some of the very same people—said it was ethical to destroy human embryos in the course of research if the research can help people.
“People are not quite sure where this set of issues belongs,” says Yuval Levin, bioethics director for the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an ecumenical think tank in Washington that publishes the New Atlantis. “To some it’s an element of the abortion debate. For other people it has to do with science and medicine. We’ve never really thought through what the moral status of the embryo is.”
That’s beginning to happen. The proposed Colorado amendment states, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include any human from the time of fertilization.” If it is passed, the courts would have to interpret the meaning of those words, says Kristi Burton, sponsor of the initiative and founder of Colorado for Equal Rights, which focuses on the rights of unborn children. The goal of the amendment, says Burton, a college student, “is to respect and protect all life.”
Fertility advocates are skeptical that “personhood laws” wouldn’t limit their choices for reproductive healthcare. In August, Resolve released a statement opposing the Colorado amendment.
“The motivation is abortion,” says R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “If the Supreme Court allows states to declare embryos as personhood, you would be in a position to say immediately that all abortions have to stop.”
The reproductive rights of infertile women may not be the target, says Dr. William Schlaff, director of reproductive endocrinology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, “but the implications are massive depending on how this law would be used if adopted.”
For instance, what happens to embryos determined to be afflicted with serious genetic diseases? “What do you do with that embryo then?” Schlaff asks.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 07, 2008 at 1918 hrs
[Part 4]
Says Burton of the initiative’s possible ramifications: “All those things would have to be dealt with later on. . . . We don’t see it as preventing infertility treatment.”
As for the Rathans, over the course of several weeks, the couple ruled out discarding the embryos. They discussed donating them to research but heard that option was a logistical nightmare. They pondered giving the embryos to another infertile couple.
“Before I became pregnant, I thought the decision would be easier for me,” Gina Rathan says. “But when it actually happened, I realized these are three potential lives.”
Finally, the couple paid for three more years of cryopreservation.
“I think about the embryos every day,” Rathan says. “I am their mother. I see them as my own children. They are the DNA from my husband and I. It’s something I worry about, especially when the three years is over and I have to make a decision again.”
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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 07, 2008 at 1919 hrs
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