” “"The processing of embryos for scientific purposes is just one more way of suppressing life". This was said by card. Javier Lozano Barragàn, president of the Papal Council for the Pastoral of Health, today, as he introduced the International Conference, "Human embryo at pre-implantation" which is under way in the Vatican (until tomorrow) on the occasion of the General Assembly of the Papal Academy for Life. The embryo, stated the Vatican spokesman, is not to be treated "as mere test material" or as the subject of "manipulations" for genetic engineering purposes when "working with no respect whatsoever of life as such". Use of contraception, sterilisation, legitimisation of abortion, as well as the primacy of the "single child": according to the delegate, these are some forms of "culture of death" which are fashionable right now in modern society, which is inspired by a materialistic concept of sex that is regarded as a "search for pleasure": hence the forms of "limitation" or "suppression of birth, when the latter is not completely subjected to all of man’s selfish whims". Opposing to such "culture of death" in a "community of selfish individuals who only run after their own interests": according to Barragan, this sums up the most pressing challenge for the believers, who are called to spread a "quality of life", which in genetic engineering must be "aimed" at "respecting everyone’s human and godly life".” “
