Stem Cell Research

U.S. Roman Catholic bishops issued a document Friday warning against what they consider the moral dangers of embryonic stem cell research, saying it treats human beings as commodities and reduces procreation to a manufacturing process. With general elections looming in November, the bishops said they are not asking Catholics or the public to choose between science and religion. Instead, they are urging people to examine how society should conduct medical research. Research advocates say that banning scientific use of embryos would halt promising efforts to find treatments for diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. Human embryonic stem cells are created in the first days after conception and give rise to all organs and specialized tissues in the body. But the bishops said that "no commitment to a hoped-for 'greater good' can erase or diminish the wrong of directly taking innocent human lives here and now." "As believers who recognize each human life as the gift of an infinitely loving God, we insist that every human being, however small or seemingly insignificant, matters to God," the bishops said.

Amniotic Fluids to the Rescue

Christian leaders from around the world are hailing the announcement of a source for stem cells – and their related medical research lines – without obtaining them from aborted babies or from lab-created-and-destroyed human embryos. The announcement in Nature Biotechnology said seven years of research by scientists from Wake Forest School of Medicine and Harvard University concluded that stem cell lines derived from amniotic fluid actually have a greater potential for good than stem cells from human embryos. "This story has become Page 1 news today because, to this point, the media has not told the truth about how promising non-embryonic stem cell research is," said James Dobson, founder of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family Action.

"Instead, they've chosen to put their emphasis on promoting research that kills human beings in their tiniest form. "Hopefully, the facts that were brought to the fore today will influence members of the House of Representatives to reject the expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research when the legislation comes up for a vote this week," he continued. "There is now a tremendous opportunity for those of us who hold to pro-life views to call for uncompromising support of research using sources that do not imperil preborn life."

• JJ Commentary: Of course, the mainstream media has buried this story. There is too much secular humanist capital already spent on embryonic stem cell research to admit they were wrong