Spanish bishops slam government approval of assisted reproduction law

Madrid, Spain, Oct 31, 2004 / 22:00 pm

In response to government approval of law that allows the “production” of embryos with practically no restrictions and opens the door to research using human embryos, the Spanish bishops issued a statement reiterating their rejection of the law, which “contradicts the dignity of man and his right to life.”

In their statement, the Bishops recalled that “the production of human beings in the laboratory, regardless of the purpose, contradicts the dignity of the person and is ethically inadmissible.”

Likewise, they emphasized that “the experimentation with these human beings ‘left over’ from fertilization processes is another attack against their personal dignity” and they recalled, as they said in May of 2004, that “to defrost these ‘leftover’ embryos in order to revive them and later take their lives in the harvesting of stem cells for research is a gravely illicit act that cannot be justified for any supposedly therapeutic reasons.”

The bishops also recalled that “research with stem cells from adults is a real alternative” that “does not pose any ethical problems.”

Lastly, the statement pointed out that “as noble as the purpose may be, the production, manipulation and destruction of human embryos is morally unacceptable.  Human beings can never be used as instruments.”