Cardinal Rigali on NIH guidelines

New Stem Cell Guidelines Not “Ethically Sensitive”
By Cardinal Justin F. Rigali

 

 

Action Alert:
Oppose Funding of Destructive Embryonic Stem Cell Research!
Support Cures We Can All Live With

Following President Obama’s March 9 executive order, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has proposed guidelines for federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The guidelines would – for the first time – use taxpayer funds to encourage the killing of embryonic human beings for their stem cells.

This marks a new chapter in divorcing biomedical research from its necessary ethical foundation, respect for human life at all stages.

Embryonic stem cell research treats innocent human beings as mere sources of body parts, as commodities for our use.

Even if, like the embryos targeted by the NIH policy, an embryo may be at risk of being abandoned by his or her parents in a fertility clinic, that does not give researchers or the government a right to kill that human being – much less a right to make the rest of us subsidize that destructive agenda.