If the stem cell bill was officially opposed by the Catholic Church, then there was something going on with that bill. I’m guessing that it didn’t distinguish between types of stem cells, but that’s purely a guess, so I’m as likely to be wrong as right.
Again, if you assume that Catholics are roughly 25% of the US population, and that only 2/3rds of that are voting age Catholics, then we’re talking about something like ((300/4)*.67=50.25) 50 million people out of a world-wide church of more than a billion. That’s 5%.
My point was that the church leadership was against it, but the rank and file Catholics were overwhelmingly for it, and voted for it because of their politics.
‘”The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat and the California Conference of Catholic Bishops have weighed in strongly against Prop 71. Their main reasons urging a NO vote are:
Drawing stem cells from an embryo always destroys the human embryo, thus aborting human life.
From a social justice perspective, cloning embryos for the sole purpose of killing them is unjustified and manipulative and the Prop 71 denies funding for adult and umbilical cord blood stem cell research, while launching the State into a costly bond issue at a time when money is badly needed for health, education, police and fire services.
Embryonic stem cell research makes exaggerated promises of immediate help to people suffering from a of number debilitating diseases, while in fact adult stem cells mostly from bone marrow transplants have already helped patients with leukemia, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury and dozens of other conditions.”’