Missouri Roundtable For Life, a group whose leaders include the St. Louis region’s most famous conservative activist — Ed Martin – is launching a series of events this week to promote an initiative petition proposal that it seeks to get on the November 2010 ballot.

The proposal was filed Monday with the Secretary of State’s office, the group says.

According to its release:

The initiative, entitled the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, would forbid the use of tax dollars for abortion services, human cloning, or other controversial research.

The group says on its Web site, that its current campaign is “to limit or repeal the effects of Amendment 2,” narrowly passed statewide in 2006, which protects in Missouri all forms of stem-cell research allowed under federal law. (Editor’s note: It’s unclear if the Web site is referring to the 2010 campaign, or a now defunct 2008 effort, which was scuttled.)

The Roundtable group says its initiative proposal “contains multiple components, presenting the strongest possible front against this deceitful law, which mandates that taxpayer dollars fund human cloning and stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research.”

“With this amendment, we are simply trying to clarify what Missourians already believe to be true: that tax dollars should never be spent for abortion, human cloning or other controversial research” said Fred N. Sauer, identified in the release as the Roundtable’s president. “Missourians don’t want their hard-earned tax dollars being diverted to such uses.”

(This morning, a Roundtable spokesman clarified and corrected some identifications in the release. Fred N. Sauer is actually the Roundtable’s chairman of the board of directors. Martin is, indeed, president. Fred G. Sauer (a different person) is the group’s treasurer.)

The group says it’s proposal “uses the same language from the 2003 Life Sciences Research Trust Fund law that was passed almost unanimously by both chambers of the Missouri legislature and signed by the governor. Drafted carefully under the influence of the late Richard Byrd, state representative and House Judiciary Committee Chairman, the 2003 law was clear that tax dollars must not be used for abortion services, cloning or other human experimentation. In the years since 2003, some changes in Missouri law and public policy have made it so these protections may no longer apply.”

The Roundtable also has filed a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court “to clarify if public funds may be spent on controversial research and whether an entitlement to tax dollars has been created by the passage of Amendment 2 in 2006.”

The Roundtable says its “Pro-Life Taxpayer Protection Tour” will begin Thursday in Springfield, Mo.

“Each Tour stop will include a press conference, meetings with legislators and local leaders, and a pro-life townhall meeting to discuss how tax dollars should NOT be allowed to flow to abortion, cloning and other objectionable research. The townhall meetings are open to the public….”

Besides Sauer and Martin, the group says that speakers will include outgoing state Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, who has been active in the movement against Amendment 2.

Adds the release:

Tour Stops include:

- Springfield on December 11th

- St. Charles County on December 16th

- St. Joseph in early January

- Cape Girardeau TBD

- Columbia TBD