Stopping the ethical slide

The pronouncement of the EU Competitiveness Council on the Seventh Framework Programme for research 2007-2013 (Brussels, 24 July) has aroused immediate reactions in the Churches and in Catholic public opinion in Europe as regards the positions adopted by the Council in the field of research on stem cells derived from human embryos. UNACCEPTABLE COMPROMISE. “The limitation of funding for research projects to already existing stem cells, provided they were not obtained from the destruction of human embryos, disguises an unacceptable compromise for the Church”, declared Monsignor ELIO SGRECCIA , President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, in a statement to Vatican Radio. In examining the decision taken by the EU, Msgr. Sgreccia pointed out the contradictions between three key statements of the provision: “The first states that researchers are prohibited from destroying human embryos in order to derive from them the desired stem cells. The second statement says that such researchers may have recourse to cell lines produced by others: i.e. those who have destroyed embryos and produced from them cell lines which they have then placed on sale. So, a coincidence of interest is established between those who prepare and sell cell lines and those who buy them. The third statement says that research protocols may be produced for funding, with the aim of using embryos that have already been frozen and no longer capable of being implanted in the mother’s uterus, subject to ascertainment of their death”. But it is just the ascertainment of death that is the sore point emphasized by the Vatican expert: “We know that to verify the death of these frozen embryos they would first have to be de-frozen and in the process of de-freezing some of them would die. So, it is impossible to see how this proposal could be put into practice without causing the suppression of embryos”. MISLEADING STATEMENT. COMECE (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community) has been firm in its reaction to the EU decision. In a statement signed by its President, Bishop ADRIAN VAN LUYN of Rotterdam, and General Secretary, Monsignor NOEL TREANOR , it calls “misleading” the statement added by the European Commission according to which “the Seventh Framework Programme for research cannot fund the destruction of human embryos, but only the subsequent phases of research on stem cells”. This funding “risks becoming, at the level of States, the preliminary stage for the destruction of human embryos”. “The use of human embryos for research purposes, i.e. their destruction or the research with stem cells derived from these embryos is not acceptable”, declares COMECE. “Furthermore there is no necessity to undertake this research; according to experts, adult stem cells and stem cells from the umbilical cord offer an alternative path with interesting and real prospects for therapy”. “Therefore – continues the COMECE statement – we draw the attention of public opinion to the gravity of this decision” and “invite our fellow-citizens and especially Catholic to recognize the anthropological significance of this debate regarding human dignity. We call on them to do all in their power to foster such a debate at the level of the European institutions, in the member states and in civil society” on research on stem cells, which will be re-discussed by the European Parliament in the autumn. INADMISSIBLE ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW. The GERMAN BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE calls the decision of the EU Competitiveness Council a “heavy defeat for the protection of embryos in Europe”, and “a worrying sign of the state of the protection of human life in Europe”. In this way, continue the German bishops, “the interests invested in research are evaluated at a higher level than the right to life of human embryos. So, a form of research that is banned in Germany, according to the current law, and presupposes the killing of human life, shall be permitted, also with the use of German funds”. This judgement is shared by the Presidency of the ITALIAN BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE (CEI), which denounces the EU decision as “morally unacceptable”. “The CEI – says a statement – has repeatedly underlined that any research that involves human embryos is placed in an inadmissible anthropological view that considers human existence not as an end, but as a means for the achievement of other goals, however noble, such as the cure of diseases and scientific knowledge itself. Science must serve man and not the other way round, especially when man is in the condition of his greatest fragility, as is an embryo in the first days of its life”. The Italian bishops thus appeal “to Italian politicians and all those who may still stop this ethical slide” and to the EU “not to facilitate in any way, with its own funds, this grave attack on the dignity of man that betrays the fundamental value of human life, without which any other individual and social value is bereft of its substance”. Benedict XVI, the CEI recalls, has reaffirmed that the protection of life is all its phases is one of the “non-negotiable principles”.