VATICAN SLAMS EMBRYO RESEARCH AS "A VERY GRAVE ACT OF VIOLENCE"

Wednesday April 11, 2001

VATICAN SLAMS EMBRYO RESEARCH AS "A VERY GRAVE ACT OF VIOLENCE"

VATICAN, Apr 11, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has reiterated the Vatican's opposition to experimentation with human embryos in the official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Catholic World News reports that Bishop Sgreccia said that the use of human embryos for research purposes is inherently immoral. The freezing of a human being, the bishop said, "is a very grave act of violence." He called for an end to the freezing of human embryos, and for efforts to find alternatives to artificial fertilization, so as "to avoid the accumulation of frozen embryos."

The restatement is timely as many governments including those of Canada and Italy are considering legislation regarding the use of human embryos for experimentation. The bishop said the existence of 24,000 frozen embryos in Italy alone -"a veritable army of human beings in baths of liquid nitrogen"- was itself a scandal "too great to avoid causing ethical embarrassment."

See the CWNews.com coverage at:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=14047

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/apr/01041101.html

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