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SCOTLAND CATHOLIC LEADER IDENTIFIES IVF AS CORE EVIL OF CLONING

GLASGOW, January 23, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow wrote a letter published in the Sunday Herald last week identifying the allowance of test-tube babies through in vitro fertilization as the first step in the downward spiral to cloning. He called our current situation regarding experimentation on embryonic humans a "bio-ethical house of horrors" comparing the allowance of such experimentation to the Nazi liquidation of Jewish people.

"The first step on this nightmarish journey was the British government's acceptance of invitro fertilisation (IVF), namely the production of human beings in a petri dish. It is often forgotten that for every child brought to birth using these techniques, several embryos will have died, been frozen or destroyed in the process," wrote the Archbishop.

He continued: "An even more ominous step was taken when the same government allowed for destructive experimentation on human embryos. The next step was the removal of stem cells from what have been appallingly referred to as 'superfluous embryos' destroying them in the process. Such procedures in turn paved the way for so-called 'therapeutic cloning' -- the creation of human embryos for a maximum period of 14 days, during which time their stem cells are removed, killing them."

Despite the seemingly good motivation, the archbishop notes that the scientists involved in such research and those who support them are "doing wrong." "In all these cases scientists are subjecting human beings, however young, to destructive procedures by making one embryo, a human being in an as-yet un developed state, the means to another human being's end -- the potential of one subjected to the potential of another."

While sentiment may argue on the side of allowing such research, the archbishop warns that "it was sentiment -- or rather the lack of it -- which enabled the Nazi regime to decide on and carry through the horrific policy of liquidation of the Jewish people. And many other horrors throughout history, even recent history, have been based on purely utilitarian arguments, or on a philosophy that has, for a whole range of motives, subjugated one group of human beings to the benefit of another."

See the full article by the Archbishop at:
http://www.sundayherald.com/30573

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