July 6, 2006

leading stem cell scientists condemn Vatican threat of excommunication

On the day before Catholic Church leaders gather in Spain for the Church’s fifth world meeting of Families, a statement from a leading Vatican cardinal to a catholic magazine has condemned scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research. World leading experts in the field have condemned the statement, in which the cardinal called for their excommunication.

Read the statement from Cardinal Trujillo, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family on the Vatican website.

Professor Stephen Minger, leading stem cell expert at Kings College London, said:

“Having been raised a Catholic I found this stance really outrageous – are they going to excommunicate IVF doctors, nurses and embryologists who routinely put millions of embryos down the sink every year throughout the world? I would argue that it is more ethical to use embryos that are going to be destroyed anyway for the general benefit of mankind that simply putting them down the sink.”

Professor Chris Shaw, Kings College London, one of the UK’s leading experts on motor neurone disease and holder of HFEA license to do therapeutic cloning, said:

“If the Catholic Church believes that every embryo is sacrosanct then they should also ex-communicate all couples who use the pill or intrauterine devices for contraception. These couples regularly achieve egg fertilization. The embryo develops normally up to the blastocyst stage, which is the same stage as is used to derive stem cells for research. However these contraceptives work by making the womb unreceptive to embryo implantation. As the embryo is unable to gain nutrition from the womb it dies. If the Church is going to excommunicate stem cell researchers it should also excommunicate the millions of couples who use these contraceptive methods and destroy billions of embryos every year.”

Professor Alison Murdoch, Newcastle University and Centre for Life, Newcastle and leads team that got the first scientist to get a license to do therapeutic cloning for diabetes, said:

“I spoke to a conference of Church leaders and Catholics here at the Centre for Life last year and got a better reception there than I sometimes receive in a scientific conference – these people are incredibly caring and compassionate and have great humanity. Of course they are right to have concerns but when I explain that embryonic stem cell research is aimed at curing and treating real live children who are suffering from terrible incurable diseases they understand that we are actually being ‘pro-life’. I think the Vatican are on another planet with this.”

Professor Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, said:

“You can say it is a step back to the Inquisition. It also goes against the statement issued earlier this year from the new Hinxton group which articulates the view that scientists should not be prosecuted for doing research which is legal and ethically defensible in the country it is performed in. I would add that they should also not be subjected to religious persecution. This amounts to religious persecution of scientists which has no place in modern liberal societies. Presumably God will be the one to judge the scientists, not Church leaders.”

Professor Allan Templeton, President, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said:

“The comment is insensitive and unhelpful to the current debate on the use of embryonic stem cells. I cannot really believe it represents the thinking of the Roman Catholic church.”