Stem cell research: some guidelines.

London, ON-Bishop Ron Fabbro of London has advised Catholic school boards that they should ensure that any money raised by students for medical research does not go to embryonic stem-cell research. Organizations like the Cancer Society do various other kinds of research, and still can be supported; but Catholic schools should not raise money for any organization whose sole purpose is embryonic stem-cell research, because it involves the destruction of human life.

The Canadian Cancer Society recently awarded S750,000 to a researcher in London to carry out such research. However, Christine Koserski, spokeswoman for the Cancer Society, said the Society was more than willing to accommodate itself to the opponents of embryonic research: it will direct funds to other research activities, or to community services. However, Dr. Michael Wosnick, executive director of the National Cancer Institute of Canada, which is the society's research arm, says that while traditional stem cell research has led to all kinds of advances it has had a "limited repertoire" because progenitor cells only give rise to cells in their own category. Embryonic stem cells are "incredibly more powerful" he claimed, in that they can give rise to every other kind of cell, and therefore are highly useful to fight cancer.

How is the lay person to decide whether embryonic stem cells are as useful as Wosnick says? First, so far no results of any kind can be attributed to the use of embryonic cells; and, secondly, as Father Michael Prieur, a moral theologian at St. Peter's Seminary in London explained, while the Church has no problem with adult stem-cell research, it rejects embryonic research because this requires "taking a life to get that cell.' Wosnick's view, therefore, is another caving in to the culture of death.

The point Bishop Fabbro makes is clear: Catholics cannot engage in, or support research which involves the killing of embryos. He discussed the same subject in an address for the Catholic Bioethics Centre, St. Michael's College, Toronto, on November 5, 2004.