Vatican issues instructions on bioethics

The Vatican issued its most authoritative document in 20 years on bioethics today.

The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or the Dignity of the Person, was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, and has the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. It was developed to provide moral responses to bioethical questions that have been raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issued instructions.

The document condemns the morning-after pill, any experimentation on embryos and the use of human biological material obtained by researchers by what it considers unethical means, such as from aborted fetuses.

But the document supports stem cell research in certain circumstances, for example when using adult cells or cells from the umbilical cord at birth, permits fertility treatments that overcome or correct pathologies and allows parents to vaccinate their children with vaccines developed using illicit cell lines, though it encourages parents to lobby healthcare authorities for alternative types of vaccines. via nytimes.com

The document did not mention induced pluripotent stem cells, one method of creating embryonic-type stem cells, from adult skin cells. Bishop Lori of Connecticut explained that there would not be a moral objection to how those stem cells were obtained.