Responsible Science & Medicine

"The individual human being can never been seen simply as an object or as raw material to be used for the public good."

The Catholic Church does not oppose stem cell research.

Stems cells are found from the beginning of embryonic development throughout adult life. Stem cell research does not require the use of cells from human embryos. Promising research and even cures are already taking place using stem cells acquired from adult bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. There is no need to kill even a single human embryo to advance stem cell research.

The Catholic Church only opposes the cloning and/or destruction of human life for this purpose. It is morally wrong to kill human life, even with the good intention of finding cures for diseases.

In reality, embryonic stem cells have not actually helped a single human patient or demonstrated any therapeutic benefit. By contrast, adult stem cells and other ethically acceptable alternatives have already helped hundreds of thousands of patients, and new clinical uses expand almost weekly.

A clear majority of Americans supports stem cell research. Of course they do – but what type of stem cell research do they support?

"Stem cell research" refers to research using various types of stem cells. Stem cells that come from adult tissue, placentas, or umbilical cord blood can be retrieved without harming the donor. The only way to obtain embryonic stem cells, however, is to kill the living human embryo.

Typically, poll questions do not make this distinction. When Americans are asked if the government should fund stem cell research which requires destroying human embryos, 70% of Americans say "NO."

Don't Be Fooled

Re-labeling the destruction of embryos as "therapeutic cloning" is a stroke of marketing genius by its supporters. In the policy debate, euphemisms have been produced to avoid calling destruction of human life what it is, some terms include:

"therapeutic cloning"
"nuclear transplantation"
"somatic cell nuclear transfer"
"reproductive cloning"
"DNA-regenerative medicine"

These procedures do not create an organism, but change the location of that which has already been created.

The debate over embryonic stem cells has been appropriated by the pro-abortion lobby, which opposes legal protection of any kind for unborn human life.

"At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun."

-- Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943. See Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2; Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146; Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3; Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw_Hill, 1996, p. 3.