Vatican response to medical advances gets thumbs down
Francis X. Rocca/2008 Religion News Service
Issue date: 1/4/09 Section: Divine Intervention
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's highest doctrinal body, last month, condemned advanced infertility treatments and contraception technologies and reaffirmed its strong prohibition of embryonic stem cell research.
The long-awaited document, "Dignitas personae," ("The dignity of a person") was released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI.
Church officials said the document was meant as an update to a 1987 statement under Pope John Paul II. While the two documents are complementary, the newer one covers 21st-centry medical advances that were not even on the horizon 20 years ago.
Like the 1987 document, the new 36-page statement condemns in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and all other techniques that involve "replacement of the conjugal act by a technical procedure."
Vatican officials know from long experience that their pronouncements on sexual and medical ethics are bound to generate controversy and resistance, and the response from the liberal wing of the U.S. church was swift and strong.
"There is little new in the statement, but it remains difficult to reconcile the Vatican's self-avowed, pro-life approach with the rejection of in-vitro fertilization and embryo freezing, not to mention the condemnation of the potential of stem-cell research," said Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, which supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, acknowledged during a press conference that the document would encounter a variety of reactions, including indifference, ridicule, and accusations of "dark obscurantism that impedes progress and free research."
In the document, church officials attempted to cast ethical and scientific debates in starkly human terms. An embryo is referred to as a "human being in his or her embryonic state," not a cluster of cells that is subject to "manipulation" or "utilitarian treatment'' in a laboratory.
The long-awaited document, "Dignitas personae," ("The dignity of a person") was released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI.
Church officials said the document was meant as an update to a 1987 statement under Pope John Paul II. While the two documents are complementary, the newer one covers 21st-centry medical advances that were not even on the horizon 20 years ago.
Like the 1987 document, the new 36-page statement condemns in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and all other techniques that involve "replacement of the conjugal act by a technical procedure."
Vatican officials know from long experience that their pronouncements on sexual and medical ethics are bound to generate controversy and resistance, and the response from the liberal wing of the U.S. church was swift and strong.
"There is little new in the statement, but it remains difficult to reconcile the Vatican's self-avowed, pro-life approach with the rejection of in-vitro fertilization and embryo freezing, not to mention the condemnation of the potential of stem-cell research," said Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, which supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, acknowledged during a press conference that the document would encounter a variety of reactions, including indifference, ridicule, and accusations of "dark obscurantism that impedes progress and free research."
In the document, church officials attempted to cast ethical and scientific debates in starkly human terms. An embryo is referred to as a "human being in his or her embryonic state," not a cluster of cells that is subject to "manipulation" or "utilitarian treatment'' in a laboratory.
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