“The killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act.”
-Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (no. 63)
A common misperception is that the Catholic Church opposes all stem cell research. The Catholic Church, in fact, emphatically supports some stem cell research and funds such research through many of its Catholic Universities. The Catholic Church, does however, oppose embryonic stem cell research because it involves the destruction of a human being at the embryonic phase. The following resources on stem cell research are available:
- The National Catholic Bioethics Centers provides consultation, resources, events, publications, and advocacy on Catholic bioethics issues, including stem cell research and cloning.
- Brother Daniel Sulmasy, OFM writes about stem cells and cloning in his short article, “Cloning and Stem Cells”, a potential resource for a bulletin insert.
Ethical Research in Action: the University of Notre Dame
Watch this video to learn more about the ways Catholic professors and scholars at the University of Notre Dame are engaging with the ethical implications of stem cell research. To learn more about ND’s work with adult and induced pluripotent stem cells, visit their site here.
Vaccines
Many have asked what the Church teaches about vaccines that were developed using abortion-derived cell lines. The Church has provided the following resources:
- Statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith can be found here.
- Answers to Key Ethical Questions from the USCCB can be found here.
- Sample letters to pharmaceutical companies and other resources from the USCCB can be found here.