Pope Touches on Abortion, Human Cloning, Stem Cell Research in Speech 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 20, 2004
Vatican City (LifeNews.com) — Pope John Paul II told representatives of more than three dozen organizations that attacks on the family and pro-life values are occurring more frequently.
At a meeting of Italy’s Forums of Family Association, the Pope condemned abortion and artificial means of producing life that allow couples to manipulate the kind of baby they have.
"Accepting and, in some cases, favoring the suppression of innocent human lives with voluntary abortion [and] altering the natural processes of the procreation of children by introducing artificial forms of fertilization, are just some of the areas in which the subversion of society is taking place," the pontiff explained.
"Civil progress cannot derive from … the loss of respect for the inviolable dignity of human life," the Pope continued. "What appears as the progress of civilization and scientific conquest, in many cases is, in fact, a defeat for human dignity and society."
The Catholic leader also discussed the issued of science and morality, as he has many times, which touches on controversial issues such as stem cell research and human cloning.
"The truth of man, his vocation since conception to be received with love and in love, cannot be sacrificed to the power of technologies and the equivocation of desires on authentic rights," John Paul II warned.
"The legitimate desire to have a child or health cannot be transformed into an unconditional right capable of eliminating other human lives," he said — directly confronting those who support the destruction of human embryos to obtain their stem cells.
"Science and technologies are genuinely at the service of man only when they protect and promote all human individuals involved in the process of procreation," the Pope added.
The pontiff called on Catholic groups to continue to fight battles to protect human life.
"Catholic associations," the Pope said, "together with all men of good will who believe in the values of family and life, cannot give in to the pressures of a culture that threatens the very foundations of respect for life…"
