Not so, Father Tad Pacholczyk told nearly 700 Missouri Catholics gathered in the state capital Oct. 1 for the 11th annual Missouri Catholic Conference Annual Assembly.

The Catholic Church strongly supports research using therapies based on stem cells, unique cells in the body that have the ability to regenerate into a variety of tissues.

In fact, Catholic hospitals are on the cutting edge in advancing stem-cell therapies that have successfully treated patients suffering dozens of chronic diseases and injuries, ranging from cancers to Parkinson’s disease, and sickle cell anemia to spinal cord injuries.

What the church opposes, said Father Tad, is the one form of stem-cell research that requires the destruction of a human life - research involving stem cells torn from embryos at their very earliest stages of human development and growth.

“At the current state of technology, (embryonic stem-cell research) requires the intentional destruction of a human being,” said Father Tad, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia who holds a doctorate degree in neuroscience from Yale University.

“The Catholic Church will always oppose the intentional killing of one human being by another human being,” he said.

Embryos are just one source of stem cells, Father Pacholczyk told the Catholics who gathered from all four of the state’s dioceses. Stem cells are also abundant in adult tissues, such as bone marrow and the nasal olfactory bulb. They are also easily available from placentas and umbilical cord blood, from babies that have died as a result of spontaneous miscarriages, and from the tissues of recently deceased people.

Harvesting stem cells from living adult tissues causes no harm to the donor, Father Tad said. Harvesting stem cells from a deceased donor also poses no moral dilemma as long as there is consent, as with organ donations, he said.

But destroying life, whether the victim is an embryo created with sperm and egg through in vitro fertilization, or through cloning - called by its scientific name “somatic cell nuclear transfer” - is always wrong, the priest said.

That living and growing embryo is then destroyed when it is five to seven days old to harvest its stem cells, he said.

“We do not offer this embryo the safe harbor of a woman’s uterus,” he said. “Instead, we violate its integrity to get a stem cell line. I hope you see the moral dilemma of taking your identical twin brother or sister and strip-mining it to get your twin’s stem cells.”

Those are the moral questions, he said. Scientifically, embryonic stem-cell research makes no sense either.

“There is no medical application for embryonic stem cells at all,” Father Tad said. “Not one single patient has been treated using an embryonic stem-cell therapy. However, tens of thousands have been treated and even cured using adult and umbilical cord blood stem cell therapies.”

“Most people who follow this debate from a distance will believe that someone, somewhere must be being cured of something with embryonic stem cells,” he said.
But the fact is, embryonic stem-cell research has never cured anyone of anything while it is drawing an ever increasing amount of precious private and public research dollars from adult stem-cell research.

Without scientific or moral arguments behind them, proponents of embryonic stem-cell research depend on emotional arguments, said Father Tad, who has testified at scores of government hearings.

“In virtually every instance, they are skilled at using people in wheelchairs or kids with diabetes (to plead for public embryonic stem-cell research dollars) without them realizing what they are asking for,” Father Pacholczyk said.

“These emotional arguments are employed to obscure the discussion that really needs to take place,” he said. “But it is a real challenge to be able to craft an ordered and dispassionate discourse on a path so that fundamental human rights are not violated.”

Above article by Kevin Kelly who is the Associate Editor of The Catholic Key, the diocesan newspaper for Kansas City-St. Joseph MO.

To obtain a copy of Fr. Tad Pacholczyk's DVD, Cutting Through the Spin on Stem Cells and Cloning, call toll-free (877) 773-4481 or visit the Donum Vitae Center for Bioethics website at www.donumvitaecenter.org.