“Latest Stem Cells News”

Responsible in the past for ‘unprecedented violence’, eugenics is a major worry of Pope Benedict XVI, who yesterday spoke about how these ‘deplorable’ practices present themselves today ‘differently’ with the selection of embryos and the discrimination of the sick and disabled, resulting in a rejection of life in the name of an abstract ideal of health.

Receiving the participants of the conference called ‘The new frontiers of genetics’, which is taking place in the upcoming days at the Vatican, Ratzinger immediately clarified that ‘all discrimination’ based on differences that are “ascribed to real or assumed genetic factors is an attack against humanity”.

While acknowledging that “eugenic and racial ideologies, which in the past have humiliated human beings and provoked inhumane suffering, are not being proposed”, the Pope denounced the fact that in our times “a new mentality that tends to justify the different consideration of life and personal dignity has become present”. Eugenics, warned Pope Benedict XVI, is being presented again today and is “discriminating against those who are disabled” or even worse “arriving at the selection and rejection of life”.

While the case of Eluana Englaro remains a controversial subject inside and outside of the church, and in Rome hundreds of people demonstrated against a bill in Parliament proposed by the majority party on a biological will, the Pope confirmed that “it is necessary to strengthen the culture of acceptance and love, which are concrete evidence of man’s solidarity towards those who suffer, removing the barriers that society often erects, resulting in the discrimination against the disabled, sick, or worse, the selection and rejection of life in the name of an abstract ideal of health and physical perfection.

Furthermore, with a step that has implications in the ongoing debate on embryonic stem cell research, the Pope underlined firmly that “if man is reduced to an object of experimental manipulation at the beginning of his development, that means that medical biotechnology is the strongest arbiter”.

Ratzinger warned, if a mentality spreads that is favorable to eugenics, “the respect that every human being merits” is weakened, also in the presence of a defect in development or a genetic disease that can be manifested during its life, and children who are judged as not worthy of life are penalized starting from their conception”.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of the CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference) and President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Monsignor Rino Fisichella spoke out today in defense of life. Bagnasco confirmed his clear-cut refusal of possible “leeway for euthanasia” because “a civil society which is truly human is called to welcome life, mainly for the weakest and defenseless”. Mons. Fisichella, worried by the “delicate time we live in, which is witnessing a radical change in concepts that are fundamental to life” confirmed “the constituent, inviolable, and indispensible value” of life.