Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Bioethicist clarifies Church stand on stem-cell research
Bioethicist clarifies Church stand on stem-cell research
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published March 7, 2008
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Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Fr. Tad Pacholczyk |
Detroit Fr. Tad Pacholczyk showed two lists during his presentation last Sunday on stem-cell research one of medical cures derived from adult stem cells and one of cures using embryonic stem cells.
Adult stem-cell research has yielded dozens of cures for conditions including spinal-cord injuries and heart problems; precisely zero cures have come from embryonic stem-cell research.
Fr. Paholczyk, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, cut through the misinformation and hype surrounding the stem-cell research issue, covering both the moral basis for the Church's opposition to embryonic stem-cell research and medical reality that research on embryonic stem cells has failed to yield a single cure.
He spoke following last Sunday's Rose Mass an annual Mass for people in the health care field at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
It is an issue Michigan voters could face this autumn, as a group is trying to put repeal of Michigan's current restrictions against embryonic stem-cell research on the November election ballot.
Besides exploding the claim that research on human embryonic stem cells has yielded many cures, Fr. Pacholczyk also makes it clear that the Catholic Church does not oppose those kinds of stem-cell research that have actually resulted in cures.
The Catholic Church:
Supports stem-cell research and therapy utilizing stem cells harvested from adults and umbilical-cord blood.
Opposes embryonic-stem cell research because the human embryo is destroyed to harvest the stem cells. |
The Church opposes embryonic stem cell research because it involves the taking of a human life by killing a human embryo just as it opposes the taking of human life at later stages in an embryo's development.
And he makes the point that, while an embryo at that stage typically five to nine weeks of age does not yet look like a human being, it is a stage that every single human being has gone through.
Showing a slide of an enlargement of an embryo on the tip of a pin, Fr. Paholczyk acknowledged that at this early stage "they look like dots."
But, he continued, "These dots are the most important dots in the universe."
And, he quipped, "As a former embryo myself, I have strong feelings on this."
Fr. Pacholczyk explained that stem cells are valued by medical researchers because they have the potential to become various kinds of cells. Therefore, they might be usable in fixing some part of the human body where the original cells are no longer functioning as they should.
But adult stem cells can be harvested from soft tissue in the nasal cavity or from umbilical cords, without taking a human life. And what are called "germ cells" may also be legitimately harvested from a miscarried fetus (though not, in the Church's view, from aborted fetuses).
The issue has been complicated, Fr. Pacholczyk says, by celebrity endorsements for embryonic stem cell research, by such figures as Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, and the late Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed with a spinal cord injury.
But to date, only research on adult stem cells has yielded effective treatment for some aspects of spinal cord injuries, he adds.
Besides his talk at the seminary, Fr. Paholczyk's Michigan visit included a talk at Holy Family Parish in Grand Blanc, a debate at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, a talk at the University of Detroit Mercy Law School in Detroit, and taping of the CTND program "Dialogue," airing March 10-23.
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