Cardinal Rigali Slams Bills on Stem Cell Use

WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 6, 2007 (Zenit.org).- U.S. bishops are urging Congress to reject legislation that would promote the destruction of human embryos.

Two bills, S.5 on embryonic stem cell research and H.R. 2560 on human cloning, are set for debate and vote.

Regarding the stem cell bill, Cardinal Justin Rigali encouraged representatives "to reject this misguided and unethical legislation, which would force taxpayers for the first time to encourage deliberate attacks on innocent human life in the name of medical progress."

Cardinal Rigali, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities, mentioned only a few issues regarding stem cell research.

He said that embryonic stem cell research has been divisive to the society and has thus far had disappointing results such as uncontrollable growth and tumor formations.

Second, Cardinal Rigali said, "[P]ursuit of this destructive research will almost certainly require you to embrace more and more egregious violations of moral norms in the effort to bring its 'promise' to fruition."

And, he added, ethically sound research using non-embryonic stem cells has continued to advance.

Cardinal Rigali said H.R. 2560, sponsored by Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado, is an example of his second concern -- that approving destructive research only leads to more and more violations.

"While all attempts to mass-produce human embryos by cloning have been marked by failure and outright fraud so far, success in this area is deemed essential by supporters because the currently supply of so-called spare embryos available for research is so limited in number and genetic diversity," he explained.

The 72-year-old prelate also cautioned about the interpretation of the cloning legislation: "H.R. 2560 may be promoted as a ban on human cloning. But it is exactly the opposite.

"This bill […] allows unlimited cloning of human embryos for research -- and then makes it a crime to transfer the embryo to a womb to allow the new human to survive. What it actually prohibits is the act of becoming pregnant -- a kind of law seen chiefly until now in the People's Republic of China, where women can be punished for carrying an unauthorized child.

"For the first time in U.S. law, Congress would define a new class of humans it is a crime not to destroy.

"Yet this is the direction in which the embryonic stem cell agenda is now taking us."

Cardinal Rigali concluded by urging legislators to vote against the bills "on behalf of taxpayers who should not be forced to help destroy innocent life, and on behalf of genuine progress for suffering patients."

In a story which bears upon this see below. This work is “hot” as scientists are wont to say.

President Bush has vowed to veto the bill if it passes.

Scientists Create Embryonic Skin Cells in Mice Without Destroying Human Life

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 7, 2007

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — As Congress debates a bill that would force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research that involves the destruction of human life, scientists say they have created the equivalent of embryonic stem cells using mice skin cells. If done in humans it could lead to obtaining the embryonic cells without killing days-old unborn children.

This research is preliminary and has only been established in mice so far, but it represents the kind of ethical alternative sources for embryonic-like stem cells that pro-life advocates support.

The results of the work — done by three different independent research teams — were hailed by pro-life advocates and scientists alike. They applauded the potential ability to mimic embryonic stem cells in a noncontroversial way but cautioned that there’s a big questions about whether the process would work in humans.

Dr. Asa Abeliovich of Columbia University in New York, who didn’t participate in the work, told AP, “It’s very convincing that it’s real.”

Richard Doerflinger, who monitors bioethics issues for the nation’s Catholic bishops, told the Associated Press he was delighted about the news.

“This is what we were looking for people to explore because it may provide all the advantages of embryonic stem cells without the moral problem,” he said. “Morally and practically, this new approach appears to be far superior.”

The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state.

If the technique can be adapted to human cells, researchers could use a patient’s skin cell to generate new heart, liver or kidney cells that might be transplantable and would not be rejected by the patient’s immune system. But scientists say they cannot predict when they can overcome the considerable problems in adapting the method to human cells.

Last year, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University identified four genes in mouse cells that have the capacity to turn countless other genes on and off in the proper configuration to make a skin cell revert to an embryonic state.

Now Yamanaka and two American teams — one led by Wernig and Jaenisch and the other by Konrad Hochedlinger of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Stem Cell Center — have gained good control over the process. They infected mouse skin cells with viruses genetically engineered to activate the four key genes.

About one in 10,000 of those infected cells became an “induced pluripotent stem” cell, or iPS cell, with all the characteristics of an embryonic stem cell, the teams reported in three papers in today’s issues of two journals — Nature and Cell Stem Cell.

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