Friday, December 12, 2008

Vatican Document To Reaffirm Stem Cell Teaching

While some in Washington are making plans to spend millions more in federal tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research and experimental human cloning, the Vatican is expected to release a document tomorrow that will simply plead: Stop.

The document, titled Dignitas Personae will be released at a news conference in Rome tomorrow, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn. Issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the paper represents the first time the Catholic Church has formally spoken on these bioethical issues since 1987 when it released Donum Vitae, the Gift of Life.

At that time, the Vatican spoke out strongly against such procedures as in vitro fertilization, saying it is immoral to “produce human embryos destined to be exploited as disposable ‘biological material.’”

During the process, an egg is fertilized outside the womb and then implanted once it has developed into an embryo. The process usually entails the creation of many embryos, which are then destroyed or set aside in an attempt to assist a couple in becoming pregnant.

The Vatican also spoke out against using embryos simply for medical research saying the scientist “usurps the place of God,” and even though he may be unaware of this “he sets himself up as the master of the destiny of others inasmuch as he arbitrarily chooses whom he will allow to live and whom he will send to death.”


Since then the bioethical issues surrounding such procedures have increased and become increasingly more complex. The document to be unveiled this week is expected to address the topics of human cloning and embryonic stem cell research as well as the multiple concerns surrounding the fate of frozen embryos.

To get a sense of the numbers, consider this. Every day, hundreds of eggs are taken from women in the U.S. — either because they are hoping to conceive a child or they’ve agreed to sell them — and fertilized in laboratories into tiny human beings.

These embryos then are either destroyed for research, discarded during a selection process, implanted in a womb, or frozen for indefinite periods.

Currently, there are at least a half million human embryos — tiny human beings with distinct genetic characteristics — sitting in freezers awaiting an uncertain fate. With the likely possibility that millions of federal dollars soon will be made available for embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, the numbers of those newly created humans are likely to skyrocket.

During his term in office, President George W. Bush restricted federal funding for embryonic research to 22 embryonic stem cell lines that were in existence as of August 2001. He has vetoed any legislation that would attempt to lift those bans.

President-elect Barack Obama, however, has said he wants to eliminate the restrictions. He also has supported legislation that would allow researchers to clone and then destroy embryos in their earliest stages of life for experimentation in medical research.


“When human beings in the weakest and most vulnerable state of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or utilized as mere ‘biological material’ how can one deny that they’re being treated not as ‘someone’ but a ‘something,’ thus calling into question the very concept of the dignity of the human person?” Pope Benedict XVI recently commented.

Increasingly, couples who authorized the creation of numerous embryos during an in vitro fertilization process are at odds with what to do with the “surplus embryos” now frozen in banks across the country.

Last week, the New York Times ran a story quoting Kim Best, a nurse from Tennessee who is paying $200 a year to store nine embryos in a fertility clinic freezer. They were created when she and he husband used in vitro fertilization to become pregnant with twins, now 14 years of age.

“There is no easy answer,” Ms. Best was quoted as saying. “I can’t look at my twins and not wonder sometimes what the other nine would be like. I will keep them frozen for now. I will search in my heart.”

When it comes to “surplus embryos” there are at least four options available: thaw and discard the embryos; allow other couples to use them for reproductive purposes; keep them frozen indefinitely; or donate them for research.

The Vatican is likely to disprove at least two of these options, either discarding the embryos or allowing their destruction for medical research.

While some believe that the frozen embryos should be “rescued” and implanted in a willing woman’s womb, the procedure isn’t as simple as it might sound.

In the thawing and implanting process, numerous embryos would be rejected and destroyed while trying to find a suitable number that could be implanted in a womb, said Dr. John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. Some wouldn’t even survive the thawing process. If they did, “they would select the healthier-looking embryos,” he said.

Secondly, the implanting of an embryo in a womb would violate the exclusivity of the marital act between a husband and wife, he said. Such an implementation would introduce a third party into the marital arrangement.

In the document Donum Vitae, the Catholic Church makes it clear how important it believes the marital union is to the procreation of life and how that union should be respected.

“Spouses mutually express their personal love in the language of the body which clearly involves both spousal meanings and parental ones,” the document states. “It is in their bodies and through their bodies that the spouses consummate their marriage and are able to become father and mother. … The origin of the human being thus follows from a procreation that is ‘linked to the union, not only biological but also spiritual, of the parents, made one by the bond of marriage.’ “

Perhaps least objectionable of all the options is simply allowing the embryos to be frozen in perpetuity. Every human life has a beginning and a natural end, and allowing an embryo to remain frozen indefinitely would allow God to determine its natural lifespan.

It may not be a perfect solution, but the least objectionable.

Dr. Haas, who serves as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said they are no easy answers.

“When you overstep the bounds of morality, you create a situation that can’t be totally remedied,” he said.

Some couples see their frozen embryos ad their own flesh and blood and are uneasy about the fate of their offspring.

A study released last week by Duke University bioethicist Dr. Anne Drapkin Lyerly and published in the journal Fertility and Sterility found that parents are concerned with what happens to their embryos, some, like Ms. Best, opting to have them frozen indefinitely.

Of the 1,000 patients polled, 53 percent said they did not want their embryos implanted in someone else and 20 percent saying they were likely to keep the embryos frozen forever. Other said they would donate them for medical research.

The study found that couples are not well informed when they decide to create surplus embryos and have not thought out the full ramifications of what might happen to them.

Aside from the issue of frozen embryos, the upcoming Vatican document might emphasize better and more successful alternatives to in vitro fertilization and embryonic stem cell research.

One of the brightest promises for couples is Natural Procreative Technology (NaPro Technology) a health science that looks at the causes for infertility. Rather than just accepting a couples’ infertility as a given, the NaPro technology tries to fix what’s wrong in a woman’s body.

“Until 1978, most of the effort in medicine in evaluating and treating women with infertility was placed in trying to identify and treat the underlying causes,” according to NaProTechnology.com, a Web site devoted to natural treatment of infertility. “In 1978, in vitro fertilization produced a paradigm shift. It led to a ‘skipping over’ the causes. … In essence this is a symptomatic or Band-Aid approach to treatment, not one that gets to the root cause.”

With new tools like diagnostic laparoscopy, advances in ultrasound technology, and new techniques for charting a women’s menstrual and fertility cycle, huge advances have been made in helping couples conceive a child naturally.

When it comes to stem cell research, adult stem cells have proven much more successful than embryonic stem cells, which are not as stable. Other research is providing alternatives to embryonic stem cells.

Many expect the new Vatican document to reiterate what it said in 1987.

“The fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality,” “Donum Vitae” said.

“Therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.”
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(Source: TB)