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ABSTRACT.
Catholic teaching has no moral difficulties with research on stem cells derived from adult stem cells or fetal cord blood. The ethical problem comes with embryonic stem cells since their genesis involves the destruction of a human embryo. However, there seems to be significant promise of health benefits from such research. Although Catholic teaching does not permit any destruction of human embryos, the question remains whether researchers in a Catholic institution, or any researchers opposed to destruction of human embryos, could participate in research on cultured embryonic stem cells, or whether a Catholic institution could use any therapy that ultimately results from such research. This position paper examines how such research could be conducted legitimately in a Catholic institution by using an ethical analysis involving a narrative context, the nature of the moral act, and the principle of material cooperation, along with references to significant ethical assessments. It also offers tentative guidelines that could be used by a Catholic institution in implementing such research.
The latest scientific advances in genetics and stem cell research bring with them promising new horizons in health care. Science could be on the cusp of previously unheard of treatments for countless debilitating diseases. Science also could be on the verge of a spectacular disaster by tampering with the core essentials of human life and its reproduction at the genetic and cellular level.1 This tension exists in a culture that values efficiency, haste, technology, and expediency, often at the expense of other values such as the dignity of the human person, respect for the mystery of life, human limitations including death, and, ultimately, the plan of the Creator.
Catholic teaching permits neither the creation nor the destruction of human embryos for the purposes of research. However, stem cell lines derived from human embryonic tissue now exist and research currently is being done in some centers using these cell lines. Moreover, cell lines are now becoming available from other institutions, both nationally and internationally. In order for a Catholic health care facility to sustain its fundamental ethical values, is it bound to distance itself completely from anything involving human embryonic stem cell research because some aspects of it appear contrary to the Catholic ethical stance in some areas, or is...