From Phiip Pullella at Reuters:
President Barack Obama's lifting of restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research puts him at odds with Pope Benedict and the American Roman Catholic Church.
After Obama signed the order on Monday, the Vatican and U.S. Church leaders condemned the move. One commentator said the test of "a real democracy" was its defense of the most defenseless.
Obama's executive order reversed and repudiated restrictions placed on the research by his predecessor, George W. Bush, freeing labs across the country to start working with the cells, which can give rise to any kind of cell in the body.
Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' committee on pro-life activities, called Obama's decision "a sad victory of politics over science and ethics."
"This action is morally wrong because it encourages the destruction of innocent human life, treating vulnerable human beings as mere products to be harvested," he added.
The Catholic Church, other religious groups and pro-life advocates oppose such research . . . because it involves the destruction of embryos.
The Catholic Church supports adult stem cell research, which has made advances in recent years, because it does not involve the destruction of embryos.
An article in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano on Tuesday said "a real democracy" should be founded on protection of human dignity in every phase of its existence.
Separately, Osservatore's editor-in-chief Gian Maria Vian told an Italian newspaper that Obama "cannot claim a monopoly on being the Good Samaritan" by saying he supports embryonic stem cell research in order to help alleviate human suffering.
"Does that mean those who oppose embryonic stem cell research want to prolong human suffering?" Vian said.
Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, a leading Vatican bioethics specialist, told Italian media: "The motive for this decision should be seen in the pressure for profits."
After the ban was lifted on Monday, U.S. shares in stem cell research companies soared. Researchers said companies that had been afraid to test the waters would probably leap in now that federal dollars can be used.
The issue will most likely be a main topic at the first meeting between the pope and Obama, expected to take place in July when the president is in Italy for a G8 summit.
In 2001, the late Pope John Paul II urged Bush not to allow stem cell research.
Last year a Vatican bioethics document said the human embryo has "from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person."
3 comments:
Just a question, because I really don't know. What is the view on in vitro fertilization within the Catholic church?
In vitro is not accepted by the Catholic Church. Reproduction/creation are to be natural.
Church teaching:
A human being comes into existence at the moment of fertilization of an oocyte (ovum) by a sperm. This fact has been recognized by the science of Human Embryology since 1883, and is still acknowledged today. The Church teaches that a human being must be respected-as a person-from the very first instant of his existence as a human being, and therefore, from that same moment, his rights as a person must be recognized among which in the first place, is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. The Church also teaches that from the moral point of view a truly responsible procreation vis-à-vis the unborn child, must be the fruit of marriage.
Pope Paul VI has taught that there is an "inseparable connection, willed by God, and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning."
IVF violates the rights of the child: it deprives him of his filial relationship with his parental origins and can hinder the maturing of his personality. It objectively deprives conjugal fruitfulness of its unity and integrity, it brings about and manifests a rupture between genetic parenthood, gestational parenthood, and responsibility for upbringing. This threat to the unity and stability of the family is a source of dissension, disorder, and injustice in the whole of social life.
What about research on a human embryo?
The Church teaches that medical research must refrain from operations on live embryos, unless there is moral certainty of not causing harm to the life or integrity of the unborn child and mother, and on condition that the parents have given free and informed consent to the procedure. Since stem cell research on human embryos, in practice, invariably causes the death of those embryos, it too stands condemned.
In summary, the Catholic Church condemns as gravely evil acts, both IVF in and of itself, and stem cell research performed on IVF embryos.
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