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VATICAN, February 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Speaking yesterday, on Italy’s ‘Day of Life’, Pope John Paul II addressed a crowd assembled for his Angelus prayer saying “One cannot bargain with life”.

In an obvious reference to in vitro fertilization, the Pope spoke of “modern technologies” exploiting and profiting from “human desires that are good in themselves, such as that of wanting to become a mother and father” by acting illicitly “to induce someone to have a child ‘at all costs’”.  The Pope cautioned that “In reality, human life can never become an ‘object’: from conception to natural death, the human being is the subject of inviolable rights, that even freedom must not trespass.”  Thus speaking of laws regarding reproductive technologies, such as are being debated in Canada and other countries, the Pope stressed, “It is therefore indispensable that States, on such complex issues, pass organic and clear laws, founded on solid ethical bases and caring for the inestimable good of human life.”

See the Angelus address (in Italian) at:  https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/angelus/2003/documents/hf_jp-ii_ang_20030202_it.html