Aborted babies may now be ‘plundered’ for use by scientists carrying out stem cell research

Posted on January 05, 2007 By The Universe:

http://www.totalcatholic.com/universe/index.php?news_id=2069&start=0&category_id=&parent_id=0&arcyear=&arcmonth

UK biotech company ReNeuron wants to repair the damaged brains of stroke patients using stem cells from aborted foetuses. The company is seeking permission for trials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates American research.

The trials will involve taking stem cells from the developing brain area of a 12-week-old aborted foetus and implanting them into patients. The move has been roundly condemned by a Catholic healthcare ethics body and pro-life groups.

Helen Watt, of the Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics, said: “Unborn children are not natural resources to be plundered for their parts.

“It is one thing to use tissue, with the parents’ permission, from a naturally miscarried unborn child. It is something quite different to collaborate with abortionists so as further to exploit the unborn children whose lives they have deliberately destroyed.

“Ironically, stroke is just one of the areas where adult stem cell research, which poses no such ethical problems, is already yielding results.”

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) also condemned the planned research.
John Smeaton, SPUC national director, said: “Naturally, it’s important to do everything possible to help stroke patients, but babies should not be killed and then plundered for the use of medical science.

“It is tragic and offensive that aborted babies should be used in this way. Abortion is wrong and is not made any better by using the dead baby as a source of experimental transplant material.

“Such research is quite unethical and immoral because it ignores the unborn baby’s right to life.”

ReNeuron has claimed it can produce unlimited numbers of stem cells from just one aborted baby. The company said it hoped this would reduce the anticipated objections from anti-abortion groups.