Seoul, South Korea, Oct 5, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The Archdiocese of Seoul announced Wednesday that it will donate 10 billion won (about US$9.6 million) to a committee that will support adult stem-cell research.
Most of the funds will come from the Church, with the remainder raised through donations, said Bishop Yeom Su-jeong, head of the committee. It also plans to award an annual grant of 300 million won to a scientist working in adult stem-cell research, reported The Associated Press.
The motivation is to raise awareness about the dignity of human life in the face of a strong lobby in favor of embryonic stem-cell research, which, according to Church teaching, violates human dignity by killing the embryo in the process.
Debates over stem-cell research have been heated in South Korea, where Korean native Hwang Woo-suk, has received international renown for first cloning human embryos in 2004 and extracting stem cells. However, he claims human cloning is not the aim of his research.