Idaho Cord Blood

I had my little bundle of joy on May 26th 2002 and she's the best thing that has ever happened to me! Unfortunately, when I had her, just under a year ago, I didn't know that I could have chosen to donate his cord blood. I knew that I could personally bank it however it was not in my finances. No one ever told me I could have donated it and it might have been able to save the life of a person with cancer, needing a stem cell transplant! How amazing would it be if you chose to donate your new baby's cord blood, and someday, it saved a life! All this debate about whether to fund stem cell research and cord blood donation awareness is being left in the dark. Think of how many babies are being born every minutes and how most of the time this precious life saving blood is just thrown in the trash. Someones second chance at life is just thrown away; Life is too precious to be disregarded like that. If you are interested in this, there is a site you can check out to order a kit for cord blood donation! It's free! You just have to bring it with you to the hospital and that's all! I hope you don't mind me barging in, but I really WISH someone had told me about this when I was pregnant! (In case you're wondering why I'm so interested in this, it's because of baby Allie, and if you want to read her story, go to www.scotthousehold.com)

As of 1 Jan 2004, Illinois is the first state in the nation to automatically offer pregnant women the option of cord blood donation. The Daily Illini reported that both houses of the Illinois Senate unanimously passed the bill 25 July 2003. The bill only requires education about cord blood donation, NOT the option of private cord blood banking. Moreover, there is no money appropriated with this bill that would enable the local, non-profit, public cord blood banks to process the donations. So where will all the donations go? They will go to the for-profit public cord blood bank Cryobanks International , which lobbied for the legislation. Similar bills are pending in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Tennessee. Please let Idaho be next.

The above paragraph is the reason for my petition. I am lobbing to get signatures to send to the representatives of the states listed, to get the word out that we citizen care about saving lives and we support these bills. Please take a moment to sign my petition. Thank you for your time, care and concern and together we will help saves lives.