Boy's mom fights for his 'right to recover'
Stem-cell debate's fate could fall to voters

Maya Bell | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 5, 2007
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Fighting for the right to recover (MAYA BELL, ORLANDO SENTINEL)
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JACKSONVILLE -- With nods, blinks and sounds only his mother can decipher, Jason Armitage made his wish list long ago. He wanted to rid himself of his feeding tube, learn to talk again and regain movement in his rigid body.

Ten years after a collision on a Kissimmee soccer field left Jason paralyzed from the nose down, the 16-year-old has met his first goal and is struggling mightily with the second.

But to his mom, any progress on the third -- his desire to move again -- might rest with Congress, the Florida Legislature and state voters, each of whom could face key decisions in the months ahead over the controversial issue of embryonic-stem-cell research.

For years, Jason's mother, Faye Armitage, 48, waved signs, marched in rallies, wrote letters and drove here and there to tell anyone who would listen that cells harvested from fertilized eggs destined for the trash in fertility clinics could unlock her son and millions like him from their physical prisons.

Thanks to promising advances by pioneering scientists and outspoken luminaries such as former first lady Nancy Reagan and actors Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve, Faye Armitage's crusade is no longer a lonely one.

"I owe Christopher Reeve a debt of gratitude," Armitage said of the late Superman actor who became an eloquent spokesman for stem-cell research after a paralyzing accident. "He made it possible for me to talk about a cure and Jason being able to walk again without sounding like a wacko or a mother in denial."

Armitage, a former economics professor at Valencia Community College, is at the forefront of a grass-roots movement that began to emerge after scientists in 1998 isolated embryonic stem cells, the basic building blocks of the human body. Today, awareness of the issue has grown exponentially........

She has lobbied lawmakers from Tallahassee to Washington, sometimes making unannounced visits. Recently, she dropped by the Palm Coast office of her representative, John Mica, R-Winter Park, hoping to share an article about the "political straitjacket" Bush and Congress have put researchers in.

Mica, a staunch opponent of federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, was not there, and she gave it to his aide.

But she spends most of her time behind the computer at her cluttered home south of Jacksonville, trying to reframe the language of the debate. She's a prolific letter writer, blogger, editor and major contributor to several pro-embryonic-stem-cell-research Web sites.

"I think it's controversial to oppose it. I actually think it's criminal," she said. "I have been called a baby killer many times, but to me the opponents are the ones killing the babies -- real babies with real diseases in need of real treatments -- not fertilized egg cells that are going to be thrown away. To me . . . we're recycling medical waste.".........

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