Michael J. Fox Fires Back at Critics

The only thing is, we would like to include embryonic stem cell research, which our scientists say has the best hope for cures and breakthroughs.

See, we're in agreement. I think that when they say talk about not being fair, there has been, again, not as much focus on the content of the ad. It's really the appearance of the ad. But really, because all the statements are verifiable and to direct comparison, it is, in effect, an ad for their position. If you see the ad and you agree with their position, and there are people that do, then it should incentive you to vote for them.

Stephanopoulos: In the ad now running in Missouri, Jim Caviezel speaks in Aramaic. It means, "You betray me with a kiss." And his position, his point, is that actually even though down in Missouri they say the initiative is against cloning, it's actually going to allow human cloning.

Fox: Well, I don't think that's true. You know, I campaigned for Claire McCaskill. And so I have to qualify it by saying I'm not qualified to speak on the page-to-page content of the initiative. Although, I am quite sure that I'll agree with it in spirit, I don't know, I-- On full disclosure, I haven't read it, and that's why I didn't put myself up for it distinctly.

But I've made this point before, and I really am sincere in it, that anybody who's prayed on this, and thought about it, and really considered it and can't get their mind around or their heart around the idea of embryonic stem cell research, I'd go to war for your right to believe that. And you're right to feel that. I respect it. I truly do.

My point is, and our point as a community, is we have a very good and supportable conclusion that a vast majority of people in this country are in favor of science playing a leading role in making changes in the future and believe in embryonic stem cell research.

So we're just saying, know that we have prayed on it, too, and we have thought about it, and we are good people, and we are family people, and we are people that take this very seriously, and we're as concerned as you are.

And we've decided that we would like to take this step and to do it with caution and to do it with oversight and to do it with the strictest adherence to ethics and all of the principles this country stands for.

But, allow us to do that without infusing the conversation with inflammatory rhetoric and name-calling and fear-mongering. It doesn't help.

Stephanopoulos: Do you think there's any way to finally find common ground with people who do believe in the end that this is tampering with tiny lives?

Fox: Well, again, the point has been made that these lives are going to be thrown away, anyway. They are marked for destruction -- thousands of frozen embryos that are a byproduct of in vitro fertilization. We have routinely, before this conversation started on stem-cell research, we have for years thrown them away.

And that's the other thing, you know, this idea of snowflake babies: We're in favor of that. The truth of the matter is that it is only going to account for a tiny fraction--

Stephanopoulos: Those are the embryos that are adopted and then brought--

Fox: Absolutely. Who would have a problem with that? That's fantastic.

But it will, in the end, account for only a tiny fraction of those eggs. And so our point is that the pro-life position is to use that -- what up to this point is waste, of literal waste that is going to be thrown away -- use it to save lives and to ensure lives for the future. I mean, they talk about unborn. Unborn kids are going to be born with diabetes. People are going to be dealing with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's or to Parkinson's or kids that are going to be injured, have spinal cord injury.

That those kids may be born into a world that has the answers for that. That's our position.

(BREAK FOR DIRECTION)

(INTERVIEW RESUMES)

Stephanopoulos: You were just saying you're about to hit a pocket.

Fox: Yeah, I just hit a nice pocket. I should be calm for a sec.

Stephanopoulos: Good.

Fox: It's kind of like surfing, you know. You wait for the wave. And I just hit a nice wave I think.

Stephanopoulos: Well, I don't want to rile you up, but I am going to bring up Rush Limbaugh one more time.

(LAUGHTER)

Fox: There it goes!

Stephanopoulos: One of the things he says is that when you're talking about all these cures, you're giving people false hope and that it's cruel.

Fox: It's so funny. What is crueler, to not have hope or to have hope? And it's not false hope. It's a very informed hope. I mean, it's hope that's informed by the opinion of our leading scientists, almost to the point of unanimity that embryonic stem cells, because they're pluripotent, because they have the capacity to be anything, and, are truly-- Will [it] be a straight path to victory? Probably not. Probably you'll have stutter steps along the way.

In fact, they just did some work where they found that it actually relieved the symptoms of Parkinson's in one test, but there some residue, some tissue residue that built up, which is not ideal. But two steps forward, one step forward, one step back, you know, it's a process, it's how this country was built. It's what we do, you know. It seems to me that in the last few years, eight, 10 years, we've just stopped, we've become incurious and un-ambitious. And hope, I mean, hope is-- I don't want to get too corny about it, but isn't that what the person in the harbor with the thing--? (Gestures)

It's about hope. And so to characterize hope as some sort of malady or some kind of flaw of character or national weakness is, to me, really counter to what this country is about.