Pope says embryonic stem cell research kills human life

(Saturday, 16.09.2006) Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday said adult stem cell research needed to be encouraged and funded saying it has produced promising and positive results but condemned embryonic stem cell research as it suppresses the life of the unborn. The Pope’s remarks came in an address to doctors and researchers, who participated in an international congress on the theme, ‘Stem Cells: What Future For Therapy. Scientific Aspects And Bioethical Problems.’ The September 14-16 congress was organized in Rome by the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, FIAMC, and the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life.
Pope Benedict told the group that even though adult stem cell research is in an ‘experimental phase it has produced promising results … in the treatment of degenerative diseases and damaged tissues.’ He said research that aims at relieving human suffering needs to be encouraged and funded, but he observed that the Catholic Church, that has always opposed those forms of research that deliberately suppress unborn human life, has frequently been accused of insensibility towards curing diseases and the wellbeing of humanity. On the contrary, the Pope said, the Church, through its two-millennium history, has always supported cure for diseases and the good of humanity.
Embryos from which stem cells are extracted are destroyed, a process which the Church regards as deliberate killing of life. On the other hand the extraction of adult stem cells, though slow and difficult, does not involve destruction of life. “In the face of this direct suppression of human life there cannot be any compromise or ambiguity,” the Pope said. “A society cannot fight crime effectively when it legalizes crime against unborn life,” the Pope said adding, “man’s welfare is to be sought not only in valid universal ends but also in the means to reach them.” “A good cause can never be justified by intrinsically illegal means.” The debate on stem cell research, the Pope said, is not only a scientific and political question, but has become above all an ethical and moral issue.