Proponents of therapeutic cloning should cool it: Pell
Sept 12, 2006
Several bishops have weighed in on the heated stem cell debate with Cardinal George Pell of Sydney suggesting that proponents of therapeutic cloning "have a glass of water" and "pause for a minute."
(cathnews.com, 25 Aug 2006) According to The Daily Telegraph, Cardinal Pell (pictured) said that his comments were directed at those people "very emotionally involved in pushing for change."
"Let's go slowly and clearly," he said.
Dr Pell said he thought religion would play no part in the outcome of the conscience vote in Parliament and that it will be decided according to scientific knowledge and ethics reasoning.
Other bishops have also weighed in on the debate with the eventual conscience vote in Parliament expected to replicate February's emotional free vote on the abortion drug RU486.
In an article for next month's Parramatta diocesan paper Catholic Outlook featured today on CathNews, Bishop Kevin Manning says that he expects proponents of embryonic stem research will try to dismiss the Catholic view rather than offer answers to tough ethical questions.
"I don't doubt that the media and proponents of the embryonic stem cell argument will try to ridicule the Catholic input as outdated moral platitudes versus genuine human need; archaic religion versus progressive science; Christian ethicists against suffering celebrities; religious fundamentalists versus science and enlightenment," he predicts.
Next door to Parramatta, Sydney diocese's Bishop Anthony Fisher, who is Episcopal Vicar for Life and Health, told the Catholic Weekly that the creation of human beings by IVF and cloning for the purpose of destructive research are practices which are "abhorrent morally and of no proven value scientifically".
"Nothing has changed either ethically or scientifically to justify human cloning or the creation by other means of human beings destined for destruction."
Referring to the Report of the Lockhart Committee, Bishop Fisher said that "this committee excluded specifically ethical concerns from its consideration and recommended lifting most ethical or legislative constraints in this area.
"This report recommended the legalisation of the production (in certain circumstances) of cloned human beings, animal-human crosses, human embryos with multiple human parents or only one and IVF embryos created for the specific purpose of destructive experimentation.
"All these practices would be abhorrent to most Australians who understood them," he added.
Meanwhile, Salesian ethicist Fr Norman Ford writing in Eureka Street again emphasised that "there are ethical alternatives to embryo destructive research."
"There are many possibilities of finding or developing stem cells of wide potentiality without involving embryo destruction."
Proponents of therapeutic cloning should cool it: Pell