Catholic Diocese of Arlington
Encourage and teach with patience

     It is with deepening distress that I learned of President Obama's decision to lift the current federal funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research.  We can pursue promising research and at the same time protect human life at every stage of development -- adults, adolescents, infants, fetuses, and embryos.

     However, I cannot and will not support research that kills one life in the hopes of eventually saving another.  These embryos are small, yes, but they are not insignificant. We simply cannot kill life to save life.

 Embryonic stem cells have not helped a single human patient or demonstrated any therapeutic benefit, despite nearly three decades of research. By contrast, stem cells that can be retrieved without ending a human life (e.g., that come from adult tissues and umbilical-cord blood) have already helped hundreds of thousands of patients, and new clinical uses expand almost weekly.

         A new, highly publicized study shows that adult human cells can even be "reprogrammed" into stem cells that have the same abilities as embryonic stem cells without the same ethical problems. Why then, are we looking to an unproven, even disproven, mode of harmful research? 

 We have seen little conciliatory actions from President Obama on these life issues within his first months as president: the reversal of the Mexico City Policy, which funds abortions abroad; the proposal to rescind the "Conscience Clause," which protects the right of health care workers to exercise their consciences (see page XX in this week's Herald); and now this lifting of the funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

  Brothers and sisters in Christ, do not lose hope! We must continue to pray and work for a country and a culture which will protect the weak and voiceless and will allow its citizens to exercise their religious and individual freedoms to do so.