Council 112 Respect Life Report February 2007

Tony Marino is an Air Force veteran who later received a degree in English Literature at Long Island University. For more than 30 years, he was an insurance agent for Aetna before eventually becoming a private insurance consultant. Since his retirement in 2003, he has devoted himself to the service of St. Peter's Parish in Concord and the Right to Life movement in New Hampshire. Tony has been married to his wife, Annette for more than 40 years. They have ten children and 22 grandchildren.

Much has been written recently about stem cell research, and very often in the articles written, no distinction is made between embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research. It is often made to appear that opposition to embryonic stem cell research is actually opposition to all stem cell research. As writer George Lictenberg states, “The most dangerous untruths are those truths moderately distorted.” As a result of recent “moderate distortions” regarding stem cell research, the Catholic Church, and others who oppose embryonic stem cell research are made to appear that they oppose science in general, and progress in health, in particular. Nothing could be further from the truth, than that mythology. The Church stands behind, and encourages the ethical advancement of science, and in particular, the advancement of adult stem cell research. The Church opposes embryonic stem cell research because the destruction of an embryo is the destruction of a human life.

Some argue that the embryo is potential life, but John F. Morris, Ph.D, in an article, “Cloning And Human Dignity” points out that contemporary embryology dismisses that argument. The embryo may “potentially one day be a musician or doctor”, but what is clear is that the embryo is always a human being. It is a human being “because of its human genetic material” and it is life, “because it is a self-developing entity.” Those who advocate embryonic stem cell research also argue that the embryo is a bundle of cells, or an “undifferentiated mass of cells”. This argument is refuted by Dr. Peter Cataldo, Ph.D., the Director of Research at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, who states that, “the human embryo is an actual, self-integrating, unified individual being endowed with human nature…” Opposition to embryonic stem cell research is based on sound science, and not on ideological concerns.

On February 18, 2007, I attended a seminar conducted by Dr. Cataldo. The seminar revealed the distinction between embryonic and adult stem cells, both as to where they can be found and what they can do. Embryonic stem cells can only be obtained from an embryo, and the removal of those cells destroys the embryo. Adult stem cells can be found and obtained from bone marrow, the placenta, amniotic fluid, circulating blood, and many other locations in the body. The removal of adult stem cells destroys nothing. And what about the status of research as that research pertains to embryonic or adult stem cells: Adult stem cell research has resulted in as many as 80 cures in treatments for cancer, stroke, heart diseases, and other health problems, while embryonic stem cells have been shown to have had no application to human diseases. But let us assume for the moment that embryonic stems cells will achieve some unknown cure: Pope Benedict XVI tells us, “The good of human beings should not only be sought in universally valid goals, but also in the methods used to achieve them.” The destruction of human life can never be used to achieve any goal, no matter how valid that goal may be.

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