The beginning of life

Around sixty bishops took part in a permanent training session in Rennes from February 18th-20th which this year dealt with bio-ethics. The meeting was organised by the Doctrinal Commission of the French Bishops Conference. The laws on bioethics which were voted in 2004 will be revised next year, and this revision “has already sparked a lively debate across the country, and therefore it is important that bishops listen to all parties involved and express their point of view”, said Mons. Pierre – Marie Carré, President of the Commission. Genetist Axel Kahn also took part in the debate, which was closed by Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris and president of the French Bishops Conference.The fascinating mystery of life. Bioethics issues deal with life, and thus represent “a fascinating topic, that can often cause suffering”. These were the words with which Archbishop Carré introduced the topic for this year’s permanent training session “It is a topic with far-reaching implications; for children, for adults, for the future. This is why bishops must be well-versed in the subject.”, he said. “Science has made admirable progress and has opened new paths of research on the nature of embryos”, added Rennes Archbishop Pierre d’Ornellas. This is why we need to give a “shared reply”. When we defend the embryo, “we defend human life, and with today’s scientific knowledge, we must consider those who have been conceived as persons, and respected as such”. “Persons deserve a name and a face. The word ‘embryo’ is a scientific term that is often equivalent to a thing, a bundle of cells”, Mons. Ornellas added. Regarding recent controversies on the issues, the bishop stressed the need to deal with these issues “peacefully”. Man is his brother’s keeper. “Especially when others have no voice and no strength to live on their own” said Jesuit theologian Alain Matthews . “Only if we learn to respect another’s humanity at its most vulnerable, we will be able to do it anytime, anyplace. Respect for human embryos is an ethical call to respect for every human being, in whatever shape or form it may be found”. A genetist gave bishops his testimony and told his experience. “The questions raised by embryos, foetuses and the first years of life are many, and complicated”, said Axel Kahn. He mentioned “extremely premature babies, whose weight at birth is no more than 500 grams, who are revived and saved but suffer severe brain damage, incompatible with a subsequent awakening of conscience. These are tragedies for which there are no adequate answers. They are all examples of the kind of questions about the beginning of life raised by scientific progress and modern medicine”.A statute for embryos. “Absolute respect for human life, because of its intrinsic dignity”. That is what Cardinal André Vingt-Trois calls for in an interview to the regional paper Oueste-France. Regarding the use of embryo stem cells, the Cardinal said: “they make people dream with the promise of curing diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. But after years of research, there is no significant progress over what has been achieved with adult stem cells. The therapeutic alibi does not hold up.” The Archbishop of Paris notes that France’s highest appeals court ruled on February 6th that a miscarried foetus could be entered into the civil registry, regardless of weight or of the number of weeks of pregnancy, giving parents the right to name it and organise a funeral. “If the Cour de Cassation says that the foetus can be registered as a legitimate member of the family, it means the foetus has a status.”, he added. “The Church’s position is that we must act as if the embryo were a person. There is a human continuity between the first cell and the human that is then born, and this continuity calls for the application of a precautionary principle, at the very least”.