Spanish archbishop says term “pre-embryo” a mocker of human dignity

Mar 5, 2006 / 22:00 pm

The Archbishop of Valencia, Agustin Garcia Gasco, called on Spaniards to defend the dignity of human life at all stages and denounced the manipulation of language by those who “use the term pre-embryo to mock the human dignity of those most vulnerable.”

Archbishop Garcia warned that “a society that treats the human embryo like the embryo of a pig will end up fostering attitudes in which such confusion will affect other stages of life, especially the most vulnerable.”

In his weekly letter entitled, “The human being: untouchable in all of his stages,” the archbishop rejected the destruction of human embryos in order to harvest some for the curing of illnesses, adding that just as “it is not licit to eliminate the unborn child suffering from disease or illness, so too it is not licit to create children destined for destruction in order to heal a sibling.”

Medical research must take into account the dignity and right to life of each human being, the archbishop continued.  “No one owns the life of another,” he warned.

Society’s commitment to the rights of the child face a three-fold threat:  “the separation between the unborn and the born; between the healthy and the sick; between the rights of children and the truth of the family,” the archbishop stated.

He added that from conception on, there is nothing that adds to or takes away from the dignity of the person, as each human being has his or her own genetic code and is completely unique.

The rights of children must be protected, he said, and there must be a public recognition in all countries of the value of infancy.