Canada Pro-Life Group Attacks Embryonic Stem Cell Research Deal 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 3, 2007
Toronto, Canada (LifeNews.com) — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty in forming a new partnership between the state and provincial governments to promote stem cell research. But pro-life advocates are upset that they are promoting embryonic stem cell research that destroys human life.
McGuinty and Schwarzenegger met at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto, where they agreed to back the controversial research, that relies on the destruction of days-old unborn children for their stem cells.
The McGuinty government is investing $30 million to support the new Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, which will be headquartered at the MaRS center. Working with colleagues in California, scientists in Ontario will investigate new therapies for cancer based on stem cell research.
The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will oversee the collaboration efforts.
"These initiatives unite some of the best scientists in the world and it shows what we can do when we work together to solve big problems," said Governor Schwarzenegger.
But what they also do is upset pro-life advocates who say the two Catholic elected officials are out of step with the teachings of the Church.
"The scandal caused in Canada and the US by so-called ‘devout’ Catholic politicians who defy the true Catholic faith reached new depths [with the deal]," Eric Alcock, the president of Vote Life Canada, told LifeNews.com.
He called it hypocritical that, as Schwarzenegger and McGuinty funded the willful destruction of human beings, that both politicians "brazenly" affirmed a staunch Catholic faith.
"Canada has descended a path of barbarism and secularism, even sponsoring the monstrous evil of abortion, thanks to a succession of ‘devout’ Catholic politicians and Prime Ministers," says Alcock.
Alcock also urged Catholic Church leaders in the nation to take a stronger stance with Catholic politicians who support abortion and embryonic stem cell research — saying that the defense of human life shouldn’t be placed solely on the shoulders of pro-life people of other religious faiths.
Vote Life Canada called on Toronto’s Archbishop Collins to respond to the deal through reaffirming Church teaching on embryonic stem cell research.
The group also wants the leader to "initiate Church Canon law discipline for all professing Catholics who refuse to make their consciences correct with Magisterial teaching, starting with Premier Dalton McGuinty."
Related web sites:
Vote Life Canada – https://www.votelifecanada.ca
