The next legislative session in Oklahoma is set to begin on Feb. 6, and among the new crop of Senate bills to be considered is one aimed at a seldom-reported problem that pro-life groups say is rampant.
Ralph Shortey, a Republican from Oklahoma City District 44, wrote the legislation, Senate Bill 1418, as a response to a 2011 boycott of PepsiCo and other brands by over 30 pro-life groups.
The bill in its introduced form would “(prohibit) the manufacture or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses.”
From the text of the bill as it was introduced on Jan. 19: “No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”
NPR and the Atlantic Wire picked up the story from the Associated Press and Oklahoma State University’s Daily O’Collegian, and soon the internet was abuzz with news of the proposed legislation.
“1) is this real; and 2) is there any reason the bill might be needed?” Bill Chappell, writing for NPR’s Two-Way blog, said last week.
There is a very good reason this bill might be needed, according to Sen. Shortey.
“Basically what they’re doing is, they’re using embryonic stem cells and these fetal kidney cells to gauge the chemical reaction that their artificial flavors induce,” Shortey said in a phone interview with The Vista last week. “So obviously I don’t like that; I’m a staunch pro-life advocate. I don’t even believe in embryonic stem cell research for medical research, let alone for food, you know, for making food taste better.”
Shortey said he discovered the impetus for writing SB 1418 while researching artificial flavoring and preservatives in food and their effects on the human body.
“I just really want to know whether or not it’s actually that bad for you, you know, so I’ve done a lot of research about this stuff for the better part of a year,” he said. “But I stumbled across some information about how artificial flavors are developed, and I actually stumbled across an article corresponding to a boycott of PepsiCo back this last November.”
The November PepsiCo boycott was organized by Florida group Children of God for Life. They were joined by over 30 separate pro-life organizations, including Operation Rescue and the American Life League.
Debi Vinnedge is the Executive Director for Children of God for Life. She explained that the boycott had been going on since March 2011, and that it was directed at the clients of Senomyx, a research and development company that the group alleged utilized aborted fetal cells in their production tools.
“We had written to Senomyx to request that they stop using aborted fetal cell lines in the research and development for developing these flavor enhancers for food companies,” Vinnedge said. “We told them, ‘look, we’ve read your patents, we know that there are moral options you could be using; please take the moral consideration of the number of people in the country who object to this and use the moral sources.’”
According to Vinnedge, Senomyx ignored the letter, so COG for Life wrote to each of the company’s clients: PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Campbell’s Soup, Nestlé, Kraft Foods.
“As we wrote to each of these companies, we found out really quick that, first of all, Pepsi had just signed an agreement, Coke had severed their contract after we wrote to them,” she said. “We don’t know why, though. They never responded to us.”
Additionally, Campbell’s Soup dropped their contract with the company because, according to Vinnedge, “the relationship they had with their customers was not worth compromising for bottom-line or profit.”
After a receiving letter from PepsiCo outlining the corporation’s relationship with Senomyx, COG for Life launched the boycott in May 2011.
“Since then, when we first did it, there were around 27 of us originally, now we’ve had about six or seven more that have come forward and joined it as well,” she said.
Vinnedge said that the boycott has gone international, with organizations in the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland and others participating.
The group went back and forth with PepsiCo for a number of months, until several stockholders from the corporation that were sympathetic with the boycott’s cause filed a shareholder resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October. The SEC has not responded to that yet.
“What the shareholder’s resolution would do is it would force PepsiCo to adopt a human rights policy that would not allow them to collaborate with, or to conduct any aborted fetal research,” she said.
The boycott itself garnered renewed attention following the announcement of Shortey’s bill’s inclusion in the upcoming legislative session.
“So basically I’ve decided to take an idea and start a conversation with this bill,” Shortey said. “I think we can have an intellectual, or even ethical discussion about whether or not embryonic stem cells should be used for medical research, but I just don’t even think that the discussion should exist or should even be an option that these cells are used to make a company better profits, to make their food taste better.”
Vinnedge and COG for Life lauded Shortey for introducing the bill, but not without some criticism of it.
“Now, the wording in this bill needs work,” Vinnedge said, “Because it’s not a fetus that’s being used, it’s the cells from an aborted fetus, and so you have to be careful when you write your language that it’s written properly.”
Shortey said that his intention wasn’t to suggest that companies were using human fetuses in their ingredients.
“I’m not suggesting in any way that somebody’s chopping up fetuses or that the cells are actual ingredients in their products, what I’m saying is that, through the development of their artificial flavors, they use—and I don’t know if they do this or not, all I’m saying is that, they have the patents—not PepsiCo, but the people that do the research for them—they have the patent, they have the patents with the federal government to do this type of research, which makes me think that they do it,” he said.
Shortey said that it would be “a public relations nightmare” if the general population found out about Senomyx’s alleged practices.
Senomyx was not available to comment, but Jeff Dahnke, a spokesman from PepsiCo, did send an email response to queries made by The Vista.
“PepsiCo’s research processes and those of our partners are confidential for competitive reasons; however, we can confirm that PepsiCo does not conduct or fund research that utilizes any human tissue or cell lines designed from embryos,” he said.
Shortey has made it clear that the legislation is meant to be largely symbolic, and not tied to any sort of regulation.
“The committee version of this bill will look tremendously different than what it does now,” he said. “It will be a lot more specific. I doubt very seriously that I will put any kind of penalties in the bill, because you’re right, it’s very difficult to enforce something like this, and I don’t hold any illusions that the state will want to acquire the research papers of all these companies.”
Not everyone is as excited about the bill as Shortey or Vinnedge.
“It seems like a big unnecessary trap,” sophomore biology education major Jess Luna said. “Like, ‘cannibalism’ is already against the law. If they’re just using this for stem cell research, people aren’t going to say no to it, because then they (Shortey, etc.) can say, ‘Well, you support eating children?’”
The satire site Foolocracy.com named Shortey the “fool of the week,” saying, “The real goal behind this legislation by Shortey is to continue the war against science and put an end to any embryonic stem cell research. He is simply trying to rile up people’s fears and disgust with an utterly ridiculous claim that there needs to be a ban on eating fetuses.”
Shortey maintained his position with regards to the bill.
“This bill was written to start a discussion, you know, on an ethical—on a foundational principles basis, as most of us in the legislature are pro-life,” he said. “As pro-life people, do we really believe that life begins at conception, secondly, do we really believe that we should protect that life, and then thirdly, if we’re unable to protect that life, should we protect the dignity of that death? (…) Those are the questions that this bill is going to ask the legislators and the entire state.”
The second session of the 53rd legislature will reconvene on Monday, Feb. 6.