A firm “no” to any relaxation of the law on stem cells was pronounced by Cardinal Karl Lehmann, President of the German Bishops’ Conference, in an interview published by the Düsseldorf daily “Rheinische Post” on 8 December. The proposed amendment of the law, not excluded a priori by Chancellor Merkel during the conference of her party, the CDU, at Hanover in early December, makes provision for the possible use also of human embryos obtained abroad after 1st January 2002. The current ban is aimed at preventing further embryonic stem cells from being used for research purposes. Scientists, however, are pressing for exemptions from the deadline, since according to them the stem cells currently available are no longer utilizable. According to Lehmann, “exemption from the deadline is not a mere question of dates but a question whether human life can be sacrificed for purposes of research”. “To this question the Church clearly says ‘no'”, added the cardinal, saying he was “confident that federal members of parliament are fully aware of the implications of their vote”. “I also recognize that the final court of appeal for a decision of this kind remains the individual conscience”, he admitted, emphasizing that “from my talks with MPs I know that none of them takes such a decision lightly”. On Merkel’s position, challenged by many Catholic circles, Lehmann said he understood “she has to take many things into account due to the position she holds. However, for the Catholic Church is it a ‘principle of conscience’ that human life begins with the union of two germ cells and that right from the moment of conception it has an inalienable dignity that we cannot simply invalidate due to the presumed priority of research purposes”.
