“The solidarity of the Christian community must not abandon this kind of shared responsibility,” he said.
In an interview with Vatican Radio on Feb. 23, Bishop Carrasco said that the estimated 42 million abortions per year worldwide have “major 'costs' on a personal, family and social level.”
The academy has studied many aspects of the abortion issue in past meetings. A focus of these most recent talks was to examine the risk for the woman and the existence of social pressures, especially in some parts of the world, to turn to abortion.
“Many times, the woman is forced, many times she is a victim,” said Bishop Carrasco.
Pope Benedict also spoke of the use of stem cells from the umbilical cord during his address. He called use of cord blood “a promising form of scientific research.”
Its use, he said, depends largely on the generosity of parents donating cord blood immediately after birth and the ability of institutions to process donations. He invited promotion of umbilical cord donations through “genuine and well-informed human and Christian solidarity.”
He warned against storing cord blood for a possible personal use, which “weakens that genuine spirit of solidarity which must constantly animate the search for that common good.”
Bishop Carrasco observed that some are already making a business of cord blood. He stressed the importance of making the umbilical cord resource available to all people, “overcoming the temptation to throw it away as if it were 'left-overs' or of conserving it for oneself, despite knowing that there will be a low probability of using it.”
In his words, reprinted in part by L'Osservatore Romano, Bishop Carrasco also mentioned that a group from within the Pontifical Academy for LIfe is taking up for a third theme of study: Infertility and therapies to treat it.
They are not going to look at assisted reproduction or the damaging effects to health tied to it, but alternatives to this procedure.
Couples should know about centers that treat infertility, which have made “enormous steps” forward in recent years, said the bishop.
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Italian experts are currently working on this question, which will give rise to a shared international study, he said. Their intention is to produce a publication in which they offer a description of all sterility problems and all of the alternative solutions possible.