Jed's Story

by Chip and Betsy Erwin
Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Our son Jed, a recent high school graduate, left for college this fall.   An ordinary achievement for many kids, but extraordinary for Jed.   Not because Jed doesn’t have strong academic credentials or intellectual curiosity, but because Jed has muscular dystrophy.  Just a generation ago, children with Duchenes Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) didn’t live long enough to consider college.  Now, through pharmaceutical advances and aggressive disease management, children with DMD can expect to live into their early twenties, affording us the thrill of seeing Jed matriculate to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Jed has faced many obstacles in achieving his goal of going to college.  Both physical barriers and societal prejudices towards the physically disabled made his journey very difficult.  But Jed’s greatest obstacle is yet to be overcome.  Without embryonic stem cell research and the potential cures such research offers, Jed and the tens of thousands of children and young adults with similar conditions may never reach their full potential.

To our family, stem cell research isn’t just a theory, procedure or esoteric experiment.  It is what gives us hope that a disease which robs children of their future will finally be stopped.

When Jed was diagnosed in 1992, researchers at the University of Michigan were hopeful a lasting treatment or cure would be found in his lifetime.  Over the past 15 years we have seen progress in understanding DMD to the point of scientists actually curing the disease in mice.

Imagine the impossible task of explaining to a teenager with a chronic muscle-wasting disease that while scientists are ready to move forward with research towards a cure for his and many other diseases, our elected legislators have been clinging to laws which essentially put the rights of frozen microscopic embryos, which are certain to be destroyed, ahead of people.  As a result, the rights to the fullest range of treatments and cures of our own living, breathing family members have been denied. 

Now, at 19, Jed has to witness a disinformation campaign by some intent on denying what most states have affirmed – that a safe, moral and regulated embryonic stem cell research effort is possible.  In fact, 45 states view such research as not just a right, but an obligation of a society in its fundamental pursuit to relieve suffering and promote a healthy citizenry.

It is our experience that an individual fully informed on the issues of embryonic stem cell research comes away with one conclusion – support of responsibly regulated embryonic stem cell research is both pro-life and pro-family.

Jed’s time at U-M may be among the later chapters of his story, but for the children who follow him and with the help of Michigan voters, his experience can represent a hopeful beginning.  For Michigan families and their children, it is time to support embryonic stem cell research and send a strong pro-family message.