Bishop Paprocki, Archbishop Naumann speak out in support of Traditional Latin Mass goers in their dioceses

Washington D.C., Aug 2, 2019 / 10:45 am (CNA).- The Japanese government is expected to approve funding for a research project, led by stem cell scientist Hiromitsu Nakauchi, to use stem cells to create animal embryos that contain human cells.

Father Tad Pacholczyk, Director of Education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that the research involves the implantation of human cells, typically human stem cells, into non-human animal embryos, such as embryos from pigs and sheep, for the purposes of growing human hearts, kidneys, and other organs in those animals.

“These organs would be generated for potential use in organ transplantation situations and to alleviate organ shortages…which could be a very helpful development for many people currently on the waitlist for an organ,” Pacholczyk explained.

“The aim is to make one species grow an organ of the other, rather than seeking to somehow ‘combine’ two species into a new, third species.”

That being said, however, Pacholczyk warned that if such research must be done, it should not include the creation or destruction of human embryos.

In general, he said, research destructive of human embryos is always morally unacceptable, because it involves “the purposeful destruction of younger humans to serve the interests of older and more wealthy humans.”

The Pontifical Academy for Life stated its 2000 Declaration on the production and the scientific and therapeutic use of human embryonic stem cells that “on the basis of a complete biological analysis, the living human embryo is – from the moment of the union of the gametes – a human subject with a well-defined identity,” and that as “a human individual it has the right to its own life; and therefore every intervention which is not in favor of the embryo is an act which violates that right.”

These will not be the first experiments done involving human-animal hybrid embryos, but it is the first to receive official support from a government. The National Institutes of Health in the US has had a moratorium on funding such work since 2015, according to Nature.

Nakauchi is the director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tokyo and team leader at Stanford’s Nakauchi Lab. He is still awaiting final approval from the Japanese government to begin his research.

Nakauchi told Tech Explorist that he plans to inject animal embryos, which have been engineered to lack a specific organ such as the pancreas, with human stem cells in order to see if they can grow the missing organ using those cells.

Rather than embryonic stem cells, Pacholczyk said, the researchers should consider using adult stem cells— typically harvested from the bone marrow consenting adults— or what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells, which are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state.

“These kinds of experiments require very careful ethical discernment, and the scientific community, with ethical input from the Church and appropriate outside regulatory control, must adhere to clear moral lines, meaning they need to agree that there are practices they will not do,” Pacholczyk said.

“This kind of research has the potential to be done in an ethical way, and to produce solid scientific advances, or in various unethical ways and to result in harmful and controversial scientific practices.”

Japanese scientists were previously forbidden from allowing human cells to grow within other animals past a 14-day period, but in March the government relaxed the rules on embryonic stem-cell research aimed at creating human-animal hybrids, allowing such creations to be brought to term.

Bioethicists have raised the possibility that human cells might stray beyond development of the targeted organ, travel to the developing animal’s brain and potentially affect its cognition, Nature reports.

To that end, Pacholczyk said that for any chimeras— third, hybrid animals— produced, care must be exercised to avoid the replication of major pillars of human identity in animals, such as the brain system.

In addition, chimeras which produce human sperm or human eggs should never be generated, he said, to avoid the production of the basic building blocks of human reproduction.

The Japanese scientist plans to begin with mice and rats, experimenting for two years, and said it is his hope to eventually apply for government approval to grow human-pig hybrid embryos for up to 70 days.

“Human cells generally do not grow very well in pigs or sheep, likely due [to] the evolutionary distance between us and them, so additional ‘tricks’ and genetic manipulations may be needed to help the human cells grow,” Pacholczyk commented.

“There is also a chance of transmitting new viruses from, say, pigs into the human organs that the pigs are growing, so this will have to be carefully addressed to be sure that if such organs were ever used in transplants, humans would not become susceptible to new infections.”

In the US, the NIH proposed in 2016 federal funding of projects to possibly create a human-animal hybrid, prompting serious moral and legal concerns from Catholic ethicists.

In comments submitted to NIH at the time, the National Catholic Bioethics Center stated that using human embryonic stem cells for research is wrong because “human beings at these vulnerable stages must be safeguarded, not exploited, in both clinical and research settings.”

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CNA Staff, Apr 3, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- The state of New York legalized commercial surrogacy as part of a budget bill passed on April 3. The law was condemned by the state Catholic conference. There are now just three states where commercial surrogacy is not legal. 

“The action by the legislature and governor to legalize monetary contracts for surrogate motherhood stands in stark contrast to most other democratic nations across the globe,” Kathleen Gallagher, director of pro-life activities for the New York State Catholic Conference said in a statement Friday.

“[Other countries] have outlawed the practice because of the exploitation of women and commodification of children that inevitably results from the profit-driven surrogacy industry,” she said.

The New York State Catholic Conference represents the bishops of New York state in matters related to public policy. 

Gallagher criticized the inclusion of legal commercial surrogacy in a budget bill during the COVID-19 pandemic. New York has more cases of coronavirus than any other U.S. state, and has seen nearly 3,000 people die from the disease. 

“We simply do not believe that such a critical legal and moral decision for our state should have been made behind the closed doors of a Capitol shut off to the public,” she said. “The new law is bad for women and children, and the process is terrible for democracy.” 

In January, Gallagher was critical of the bill, calling it “a dangerous policy that will lead to the exploitation of poor, vulnerable women, and has few safeguards for children.” There are no safeguards such as residency requirements and background checks for surrogate parents, the conference points out.

“The surrogacy legislation is designed mainly to benefit wealthy men who can afford tens of thousands of dollars to pay baby brokers, at the expense of low-income women,” said Gallagher in a January 8 statement. 

Previously, New York was one of four states that prohibited contracts that would pay surrogate mothers to carry and deliver an unrelated child that would be then placed with a different family. 

Louisiana, Michigan, and Nebraska are the only states that now do not allow commercial surrogacy.

Gestational surrogacy typically uses a “donor” egg, rather than the surrogate’s ovum, to avoid legal complications if the surrogate were to decide she no longer wants to surrender the child to the “intended parents.” 

The donor egg is then fertilized and implanted in the surrogate using in-vitro fertilization (IVF). 

Regarding the practice of IVF, the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2376 teaches that:

“Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ ‘right to become a father and a mother only through each other.’”

Previously, all surrogacy in New York was known as “altruistic” surrogacy as the surrogate mother could not be paid for carrying the child. 

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), said that the passage of commercial surrogacy was a move to “bring New York in line with the needs of modern families, while simultaneously enacting the strongest protections in the nation for surrogates.” 

Under the new law, those wishing to use a surrogate must pay for her life insurance during the pregnancy and for one year after giving birth, and the “intended parents” must pay for legal counsel for the surrogate mother. Surrogates must be at least 21 years of age. 

Paulin has worked on legalizing commercial surrogacy for 14 years, and first introduced legislation to legalize the practice in 2012. 

She said her bill would provide “the opportunity to have a family in New York and not travel around the country, incurring exorbitant costs simply because they want to be parents.” 

Surrogacy costs range from $55,000 to nearly a quarter of a million dollars. 

In addition to the legalization of commercial surrogacy, the budget bill also banned plastic foam containers and flavored vaping products, instituted new paid sick leave requirements, expanded wage mandates, and introduced new policies that make it more difficult for third parties to qualify for ballots. 

The legalization of commercial surrogacy goes into effect on February 15, 2021.

[…]

CNA Staff, Aug 20, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Former president Barack Obama and Sen. Kamala Harris both spoke on the importance of values and faith during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, but did not address policies that challenge the religious liberties of Catholics and other believers. 

Obama, who spoke first Aug. 19, used his speech to stress the obligations of the presidency to protect all people, and to endorse former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign to unseat President Donald Trump.

Biden, Obama said, “made me a better president — and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country.” 

According to the former president, Trump has “shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.” 

“At minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us–regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have–or who we voted for,” said Obama. 

Obama lamented “Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped.” 

The 44th president’s call to protect freedom of worship stood in contrast to several policies initiated during his two terms in office.

In 2012, numerous Catholic and Christian groups, including the religious order the Little Sisters of the Poor, filed suit against the Obama administration, alleging that their religious freedom was violated by the contraception mandate that was added to the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor in June 2014 in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. 

The Supreme Court once again ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor in 2020. Following that decision, Biden, a Catholic, pledged to remove their court-ordered exemption if he is elected president. 

In his speech Wednesday, Obama credited past generations who experienced discrimination and hardship as examples of perseverence and belief in American ideals and values. 

“And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work,” he said. “We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life.”

During Obama’s presidency, the IRS improperly audited dozens of conservative organizations, and issued an apology in 2017 for its use of “heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays” to those organizations. 

Also on Wednesday, Sen. Kamala Harris formally accepted her nomination as candidate for vice president, to close the third night of the virtual DNC. 

Harris said her mother, who immigrated to the United States from India, the values she lives by and remains committed to. 

“To the Word that teaches me to walk by faith, and not by sight. And to a vision passed on through generations of Americans–one that Joe Biden shares,” she said. “A vision of our nation as a beloved community, where we all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we love.” 

This vision, said Harris, is of, “a country where we may not agree on every detail, but we are united by the fundamental belief that every human being is of infinite worth, deserving of compassion, dignity and respect.” 

Harris, who supports federal funding for abortion, was sued by pro-life pregnancy centers in 2015 after she, as California’s attorney general, sponsored a law that required pregnancy centers to provide information about where to acquire an abortion. The law was struck down. 

“Make no mistake, the road ahead will not be not easy. We will stumble. We may fall short. But I pledge to you that we will act boldly and deal with our challenges honestly. We will speak truths. And we will act with the same faith in you that we ask you to place in us,” Harris said. 

“We believe that our country—all of us, will stand together for a better future. We already are.”

[…]