The Catholic Church Position on Fetal Stem Cell Research

Embryonic stem cells have been a hot button topic between scientists and moralists increasingly in recent years. The Catholic Church vehemently opposes embryonic stem cell research as the destruction of a life for the convenience and benefit of others, but scientists continue to pursue fetal stem cell research (even though it has cured no diseases while adult stem cell research has cured several, as seen in this chart) because the fetal stem cell has the quality of pluripotentiality, which means that it can develop into any human tissue (adult stem cells can only develop into certain tissues according to current experiments). Despite the (still unproven) quality or pluripotentiality, the Catholic Church continues to oppose embryonic stem cell research because, in the solidarity of an embryo's life, the embryo(which is in actuality a human being) cannot be used as a disposable commodity. Although fetal stem cell research has the potential to help several people (although I do stress that it only has the potenial to help people, since it has not helped anybody yet), the Church stands by the age-old moral teaching: the ends do not justify the means. Certainly the possibility of curing once-though incurable diseases is a noble and magnificent end, but this does not justify the destruction of life at its most vulnerable and innocent stage.

Many people in our society do not view the fetus as a human being, which prevents them from seeing the greed and immorality behind embryonic stem cell research. The embryo is not only considered human by the Catholic Church, but also by science. When the sperm and egg meet in the act of fertilization, a DNA strand from the mother attaches to a DNA strand from the father to form an entirely new strand of DNA. And since DNA encodes the entire genetic make-up of an individual, this fetus must be a distinct, unique, individual person. Because of this fact, embryonic stem cell research is indisputably an act of killing, and thus morally reprehensible.

When two strands of DNA come together in the act of fertilization, they form a distinct new DNA strand in the egg which creates a human fetus.

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