ActiveParishioner.com Blog

Twice a year, the US bishops meet together for a business meeting.  Some might say that it is similar to a board meeting.  But in reality, each diocese is its own “company” so a better analogy is that of a business roundtable.  Leaders of the individual dioceses meet to discuss and work on issues that they share in common.  The November meeting is the longer of the two and includes many business items.  The June meeting has a short business session and is supposed to also offer a retreat environment for the bishops.  This year’s June meeting was held June 12-14, 2008, in Orlando.  A substantive item was a statement on Embryonic Stem Cell Research which the bishops approved.

The statement is brief but written clearly.  As readers will be able to guess, the bishops are against embryonic stem cell research because it destroys human embryos.  The statement emphasizes the “imperative to respect human life.”  As the bishops say, “Because life is our first and most basic gift from an infinitely loving God, it deserves our utmost respect and protection.”

The statement goes on to present three arguments that people often use and gives a Catholic response to each.  The first is that any harm done is outweighed by the potential benefit.  This is a version of the old “the end justifies the means” argument.  The statement easily refutes this line of thinking and points out how dangerous it can be to go along this path.

The second argument is that when a human embryo is destroyed, it is not really a human being.  The bishops counter that life begins with conception and, thus, the human embryo is already a human being.

The third argument is that destroying an embryo by taking cells is not a problem if the embryos were “spare” or unwanted.  The statement again points out the danger of this line of thinking and also notes how we all would find it totally wrong to conduct a lethal experiment on a terminally ill patient or on a prisoner on death-row. 

The statement also reiterates that cloning is morally wrong.  It concludes by affirming existing research on adult stem cells.  It also emphasizes that stem cell research is not impossible without embryonic stem cells. 

The statement is succint and informative.  Many who want to read a summary of Catholic thought on this topic will find it helpful.