Catholic Bishops Launch Campaign to Oppose Obama Embryonic Stem Cell Research Plan
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 6, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched a new campaign to oppose President Barack Obama’s plan to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research. The National Institutes of Health released public proposed to implement the plan and the Catholic bishops oppose the move.
Their “Oppose Destructive Stem Cell Research” campaign launched today — an effort to equip pro-life advocates to contact Congress and NIH to oppose embryonic stem cell research and support ethical cures and treatments “we can all live with.”
Following President Obama’s March 9 executive order, the NIH proposed guidelines for federally funded research that will require destroying live human embryos for their stem cells. The draft guidelines are open for public comment through May 26.
The campaign summarizes why the proposed guidelines are unacceptable, provides links to USCCB resources including the bishops’ statement “On Embryonic Stem Cell Research” and multi-media resources and ads.
The campaign site explains that the NIH guidelines “would—for the first time—use taxpayer funds to encourage the killing of embryonic human beings for their stem cells.” It continues, “Embryonic stem cell research treats innocent human beings as mere sources of body parts, as commodities for our use.”
Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, told LifeNews.com in a statement that, “The Catholic bishops of the United States will be writing to Congress and the Administration about the need to restore and maintain barriers against the mistreatment of human life in the name of science, and we urge other concerned citizens to do the same."
The nation’s Catholic bishops join the National Right to Life Committee in worrying that the implementation of the NIH guidelines is merely a first step to the purposeful creation and destruction of human embryos for research.
“They want to obtain stem cells by destroying human embryos specially generated for research through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or cloning procedures – a ‘create to kill’ policy,” the USCCB accuses Obama and his allies.
The National Right to Life Committee detailed the strategy in a letter it sent to members of Congress in March outlining its objections to the a Congressional bill and its Senate companion version.
Related web sites:
USCCB Stem Cell Campaign – https://www.usccb.org/stemcellcampaign
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