French Catholics Seek Legal Status for Embryos

Reuters ^ | 2/19/08 | Tom Heneghan

[foreshadowed at waco]

PARIS (Reuters) - France's Roman Catholic Church has called for embryos to be given a clear legal status following a court decision that let parents of miscarried fetuses enter them with a name in the official civil registry.

Groups opposed to abortion in many countries have long argued for a legal status for embryos as the first step towards having courts rule that abortion is a form of murder. Abortion rights supporters vigorously oppose any such status.

But Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, head of the French bishops' conference, said establishing this status would not undermine legal abortion in France because of the way the law allowing the termination of pregnancies was constructed.

The Cour de Cassation, France's highest appeals court, ruled on February 6 that a miscarried fetus could be entered into the civil registry if a couple wished to commemorate it that way.

"This means that a fetus has a status," said Vingt-Trois, who is meeting fellow bishops this week to discuss bioethics issues. "What has happened in the past 50 years is that the legal status of the embryo and fetus has been rapidly changed. They have been turned into things.

"The Church's position is that we must act as if the embryo were a person," he told the Rennes daily Ouest-France. "We protect endangered animals so we should protect people too."

Abortion rights campaigner Marie-Francoise Colombani, columnist for the women's magazine Elle, said the court had opened a Pandora's box by trying to accommodate grieving parents.

"Why don't we give legal status to what develops in a test tube during in vitro fertilization?" she asked. "The law is supposed to be a safeguard, but it has produced sheer folly."

[AFPhys]

It’s always been my practice to give a name to my discarded toenails and hangnails. Of course, this practice wouldn’t have any real significance, Cardinal.