Sydney, Australia, Apr 21, 2004 / 22:00 pm
People have been misled into believing that ‘excess’ human embryos will be used to find cures for Parkinson’s disease and other medical conditions, says Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney.
"This is not what these human embryos will be used for," he told the Catholic Weekly. "Four of the first five licenses have gone to IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics to improve their techniques. It is not, as claimed, permitting the destruction of human embryos with a ‘heavy heart’ in the interest of finding cures for people,” he said.
"All five of the licenses are connected to IVF teams, not to university medical research centers," he underlined.
Bishop Fisher says the issuing of the licenses by the National Health and Research Council just followed "a bad decision made years ago to allow IVF clinics to make more human embryos than they need".