troung

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...30/ixnews.html

Vatican vows to expel stem cell scientists from Church
By Malcolm Moore in Rome and Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 30/06/2006)

Scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research and politicians who pass laws permitting the practice will be excommunicated, the Vatican said yesterday.
"Destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion. It is the same thing," said Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
"Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law," he said in an interview with Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine.
Excommunication forbids Catholics from receiving communion, assisting in any Church duties, and sometimes from having a Church burial.
But the threat was shrugged off yesterday by Italy's leading expert on cloning, Prof Cesare Galli, of the Laboratory of Reproductive Technologies in Cremona, who was the first scientist to clone a horse.
Prof Galli likened the Vatican to the Taliban and added: "I can bear excommunication. I was raised as a Catholic, I share Catholic values, but I am able to make my own judgment on some issues and I do not need to be told by the Church what to do or to think.
"I will be, together with Elena Cattaneo [a scientist working in the University of Milan] the first to be affected by the excommunication and then there are two other labs that I know using imported embryonic stem cells."
The research is opposed by the Catholic Church because it involves destroying embryos. This occurs at the point when they consist of about 100 to 200 cells and the so-called inner cell mass is removed. These stem cells can grow indefinitely and turn into any of the body's 200 cell types.
Scientists believe research making use of the cells could eventually yield treatments for a range of diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and Parkinson's.
The Vatican's tough stance on the issue came as the Pope prepared to visit Valencia for the fifth annual world conference on the Catholic family. Spain passed a law permitting embryonic stem cell research two years ago to the dismay of the Church.
An Italian senator, Paola Binetti, a member of Opus Dei and a prominent campaigner for Catholic rights, also spoke against the Church's line.
"I am upset and stunned," she said. "It is a mistake to give out the idea that God is angry with Man because he is not in agreement with him."
Cardinal Trujillo said it was not just Spain which had "thrown out the fundamental laws of nature" but also Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian countries and France. He did not mention Britain, which is at the forefront of embryonic stem cell research.Belgium's divided State.

24 July 2001: Pope urges Bush to ban embryo research
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Tronic

another case of religion interfering with progress...

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-Touch The Sky With Glory

Expat Canuck

I hate religios nuts of any faith, this could honestly save lives and there are other ways being developed to extract stem cells without destroying an embryo but in the meantime............

667medic

Trust me this is definitely harming research in Stem Cell Biology.
Most of the talent is in the West but they don't have the freedom to carry out their research.
Other countries like Singapore, China and S.Korea are clearly barrowing the gap....

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Seek Save Serve Medic

Asim Aquil

When I first read Mullahs I'm like no wayyy. Here's why. Islam allows stem cell research provided some safegaurds are followed. It considers Embryos in the early stages as potential life, not as real life.

Some safegaurds like Embryo's obtained should be the failed attempt from in Vitro Fertilization, the ones that weren't used.

iVF itself has some guidelines that should be mentioned here. Couple should be married and no surrogate mother should be used. I don't agree with these two since I haven't personally seen Quranic evidence for this.

Embryos should not be created for the explicit purpose of this research. There are enough to go around from iVF.

Safegaurds IMO are reasonable for Stem Cell research, its encouraged too, since it'll better human life.

667medic

And you need tons of Safeguards.
Stem Cells have the capacity to turn into any other cell in the human body. Consequently, it can even turn cancerous, then you are in deep shyt...
I have read about a Russian tycoon why was undergoing Stem Cell theraphy to cure baldness, he ended up having ugly cysts all over the face, poor guy...

Expat Canuck

Stem Cell research is just fine in Canada.