Dana Reeve, widow of actor Christopher Reeve, set aside private mourning to endorse Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry at a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio, on 21 October 2004. Her husband, widely known for his role as Superman, had died 11 days earlier from heart failure brought on by the spinal cord injury he sustained in a fall from a horse in 1995.
Speaking before an audience that wiped tears throughout her remarks, Dana Reeve said the decision to appear was entirely her own and not arranged by the Kerry campaign. She framed her endorsement around stem cell research, arguing that Kerry's position kept hope alive for people with spinal cord injuries and similar conditions.
President George W. Bush had confined federal funding to stem cell lines already harvested before his 2001 policy decision, responding to pressure from religious groups. The White House rejected the word "ban," arguing that Bush was the first president to authorize any federal spending on embryonic stem cell research at all. Kerry pledged to reverse those restrictions.
The Columbus event was one of several campaign stops where Kerry was joined by actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, as he pressed the stem cell issue on the trail. Analysts at the time considered Ohio a decisive battleground state in the November election.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.