Posted on 10/09/2006 7:25:37 PM PDT by Coleus
ST. LOUIS, October 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – For the first time, a Catholic bishop in the US has come out with a strong statement clarifying the Church’s teaching on the practice of donating, or sometimes selling, human ova for medical research. Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, a strong advocate for life and family, has published a pastoral letter in which he says unequivocally that the removal of ova for artificial reproduction, including cloning, is a grave moral evil.
Referring to an upcoming ballot initiative to amend the state constitution, Archbishop Burke warned that the push to create cloned human beings for medical research not only necessarily takes the lives of innocent human beings, but also exploits women in the process. He wrote, “Human cloning requires the harvesting of eggs from women who are exploited to accomplish the purposes of its proponents. As Christians, we must address the immorality of such exploitation.” “The woman who subjects herself to the harvesting of her eggs for human cloning participates in a grave moral evil, the artificial generation of human life.” Burke said.
That the Catholic Church unequivocally condemns all artificial means of reproduction, as well as abortion and contraception, is one of her best-kept secrets. Pro-life advocates have long struggled to bring to light the fact that the source of much of the so-called “stem cell controversy” is that IVF and its related procedures are themselves violations of human dignity. Burke tells his readers that the ballot measure, called Amendment 2, contains deceptive language and although it is presented as a ban on cloning, it actually protects the practice.
“In fact,” says Burke, “it gives the constitutional right to clone human beings.” “Women will be asked to cooperate in the process without the necessary explanation of the moral implications of their cooperation.” Burke says plainly: “The natural moral law prohibits any woman from cooperating in the act of human cloning.”
He warns that the process involved in creating human clones makes not only the clone but the woman into a “commodity” to be bartered in the scientific world. Calling the process “dehumanizing,” Burke says, “The great gift of fertility in a woman, the natural production of the human egg for reproduction, now becomes an object for manipulation by those who promote human cloning.” "A woman’s cooperation in the twin evils of human cloning and the destruction of human embryos for the sake of the harvesting of stem cells is never justified.”
The Archbishop calls on his readers to consider “the grave moral crisis for our state and nation, which Amendment 2 represents, please give reflection to the moral and physical exploitation of women involved in human cloning for embryonic stem-cell research.”
Read the full text of Archbishop Burke’s letter:
http://www.stlouisreview.com/abpcolumn.php?abpid=11552
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Barely Studied Risks of Egg-Donation Come Under Scrutiny
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06081106.html
Are you volunteering to tell them about their ill-fated siblings?
No.
What I meant to say was we were better off living in caves, eating filthy uncooked meat and running for our lives from Smilodon. (Sarcasm)
READ THE REST OF THE POST!!!
We should be very clear on the concept of equal rights before we go at this technology full throttle. My fear is clones become organ farms instead of having full human rights.
I will if you will.
The title should have been in vitro fertilization. If they develop a birthing tank, that could lead to the end of all or almost all abortion.
Non Catholic BTTT! Bravo!
You have no problem telling little Johnny his siblings were murdered because mommy and daddy found out Johnny would be born? Wow.
If there was only one zygote, your son, then there probably would be no argument against such an in vitro fertilization by anybody so far on this thread.
I don't believe a body can have a soul associated with it, until there is an interface between the two, i.e., a brain. Therefore, I don't believe the zygote becomes a person until there is, at least, brain activity.
Therefore, those other zygotes weren't siblings. They were other potential bodies that Johnny and his siblings and/or cousins could have inhabited, if different choices had been made.
Now, you want to tell Johnny that he shouldn't even had the body in the first place....
See post #31.
You have stolen their humanity. It's a very Nazi tactic: just say they're not human and you can do what you want with them.
Amazing is it? No right to have children? No right to exist? Man....
You have stolen their humanity. It's a very Nazi tactic: just say they're not human and you can do what you want with them.
If humanity is based merely on physical existence, then that is to deny any significance to the mind and soul. It is a materialist and atheist world-view, whether you realize it or not.
Fat juicy strawmen will get you nowhere. You are the one saying they have no soul because their nervous systems haven't developed yet. Your post, in fact, ascribes to me exactly the position you are taking.
Petronski is right.
Man was created in God's image. God is a spiritual being, not a corporeal one. Therefore it is not our corporeal existence that makes us in His image, but our spirit -- our mind and our soul.
An object without a mind/soul, therefore, cannot be "in God's image" and, therefore, cannot be human. Unless you want to reduce God to mere physical existence. That said, a soul owns the body it exists with, which is why murder is a sin.
Criticize my theology and conclusions if you will. But do not set up the straw man of me using Nazi tactics, and I will take down the atheist scarecrow.
The Nazi nature of your argument--defining persons out of existance so they can be discarded--is not a scarecrow, it is historical fact. Your atheist claims about my position are laughably sophmoric.
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