The LORD is the "Keeper of the Stars" Dedicated to all the Children of the World
Jesus You loved the little children, you held and blessed them. Please bless all married couples with children of their own, to hold and to bless in Your name. Bless them so they wipe tears with a smile and give a kiss to a child. Bless them as they see a child's precious face look at you with love. Let them see how this is as close as we will ever be to seeing your dear face, sweet Jesus. You who gave us free will, help those who seek abortions see that all human life is sacred. If they are unwilling or unable to have this sweet child, encourage them to give it to someone who is. Amen "Dear Jesus, center of all Life, I love You"
A Reflection on Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Cloning As we have had much discussion in our state in regard to abortion, to stem cell research, to cloning, I adapt and restate a series of articles I did in the bulletin from September 30, 2001 to October 21, 2001. I also add to this reflection, thoughts on cloning and stem cells. Five Siblings Conceived in a Laboratory Let us suppose your father and mother wanted to have children. They have been trying to have a child for many years since they have been married. After five years of marriage they decide to see a doctor to get eggs from your mother and sperms from your father. They want the doctor to fertilize the eggs in the laboratory and then place a fertilized egg in your mother for the egg to grow into a baby, to grow into you. So the doctor helps your mother and father have children by working with a fertility clinic. Your mother and father pay $5,000 for the clinic to fertilize a human egg from your mother with a human sperm from your father in what is called in vitro fertilization. They do not fertilize one egg but instead they fertilize five eggs from your mother with your father's sperms. Once these eggs are fertilized they become human embryos. They have everything at their disposal to develop into human beings, that is their DNA is set. All they need is your mother's womb. Because there are five human embryos, there are five siblings. These are five brothers and/or sisters right there in the clinic's laboratory. The clinic takes one of the human embryos and places it in your mother so the embryo can continue its development. The other four human embryos are kept frozen in a freezer at the clinic. Your mother and father signed a contract for the clinic to keep your siblings until they want them to be born. As the months go from one month to four months to six months, your mother and father get more and more excited in anticipation of the birth of their first child. But something goes wrong. The doctors tell your mother and father that there is a miscarriage. They are sad. They wanted that first baby. So your mother waits a year to get strong again and goes to the clinic for the doctors to place the second human embryo in her. As time comes closer they are more careful and there is a successful birth. You are born. You are a beautiful seven-pound girl. Your mother and father are happy and very proud of you. They bring you to church for baptism. They show you to everyone they meet. Everyone is so happy for you and your mother and father. Two years later, your mother and father decide it is time for another child to be born. So they go to the clinic again and have the doctors go to the freezer to get another sibling. They place a third human embryo in your mother. Your mother and father are very careful and everything is great. In nine months you have a new baby brother. He weighs seven pounds and eight ounces. He is just a little bigger than you at birth. You are happy to have a brother. Your mother and father are happy. You go with them to baptize your baby brother. Your whole family is happy. Now it has been almost four years since your mother and father have had five eggs fertilized. The doctors placed three human embryos in your mother. The first baby miscarried. You were the second baby. Your baby brother is the third baby. You still have two siblings in the freezer at the clinic. When your baby brother is two years old, the clinic sends a letter to your mother and father letting them know that their contract for the clinic to take care of your siblings will soon terminate. When your mother and father get this letter, they remember about that detail of the contract. But with you and your brother they think they better not have any more children because you and your brother are all they can take. So they tell the clinic they will not renew the contract and the clinic can destroy the two human embryos they are keeping for your mother and father. In other words they can destroy your two siblings who are in the freezer. So the clinic then proceeds to take these two human embryos out of the freezer and lets them defrost. They hear how the government will pay scientists to take the stem cells from human embryos to see if they can train these cells to develop into a heart, or kidney or other organ for someone else. Your siblings did not have the chance to be born and grow up into good boys or girls. If they would have grown up and maybe died because of an accident, your mother and father could have allowed their organs to be removed from their bodies and given to someone who needed a new organ. But they did not have the chance to grow up. They were human life in the freezer. They were human life thrown away except for their stem cells. They were used for scientific research. If you can understand this example, then you know why we say we respect life from the moment of conception, which is from the moment of fertilization. If the doctor had not chosen you or your brother but one of your other siblings to place in your mother, you or your brother would be that human embryo discarded and stem cells taken. There are five siblings, five sisters and/or brothers. One was a miscarriage, two were born - a girl and a boy - and two were killed before they could be placed in your mother and develop.
Five Siblings Conceived in a Laboratory Let us suppose your father and mother wanted to have children. They have been trying to have a child for many years since they have been married. After five years of marriage they decide to see a doctor to get eggs from your mother and sperms from your father. They want the doctor to fertilize the eggs in the laboratory and then place a fertilized egg in your mother for the egg to grow into a baby, to grow into you. So the doctor helps your mother and father have children by working with a fertility clinic. Your mother and father pay $5,000 for the clinic to fertilize a human egg from your mother with a human sperm from your father in what is called in vitro fertilization. They do not fertilize one egg but instead they fertilize five eggs from your mother with your father's sperms. Once these eggs are fertilized they become human embryos. They have everything at their disposal to develop into human beings, that is their DNA is set. All they need is your mother's womb. Because there are five human embryos, there are five siblings. These are five brothers and/or sisters right there in the clinic's laboratory. The clinic takes one of the human embryos and places it in your mother so the embryo can continue its development. The other four human embryos are kept frozen in a freezer at the clinic. Your mother and father signed a contract for the clinic to keep your siblings until they want them to be born. As the months go from one month to four months to six months, your mother and father get more and more excited in anticipation of the birth of their first child. But something goes wrong. The doctors tell your mother and father that there is a miscarriage. They are sad. They wanted that first baby. So your mother waits a year to get strong again and goes to the clinic for the doctors to place the second human embryo in her. As time comes closer they are more careful and there is a successful birth. You are born. You are a beautiful seven-pound girl. Your mother and father are happy and very proud of you. They bring you to church for baptism. They show you to everyone they meet. Everyone is so happy for you and your mother and father. Two years later, your mother and father decide it is time for another child to be born. So they go to the clinic again and have the doctors go to the freezer to get another sibling. They place a third human embryo in your mother. Your mother and father are very careful and everything is great. In nine months you have a new baby brother. He weighs seven pounds and eight ounces. He is just a little bigger than you at birth. You are happy to have a brother. Your mother and father are happy. You go with them to baptize your baby brother. Your whole family is happy. Now it has been almost four years since your mother and father have had five eggs fertilized. The doctors placed three human embryos in your mother. The first baby miscarried. You were the second baby. Your baby brother is the third baby. You still have two siblings in the freezer at the clinic. When your baby brother is two years old, the clinic sends a letter to your mother and father letting them know that their contract for the clinic to take care of your siblings will soon terminate. When your mother and father get this letter, they remember about that detail of the contract. But with you and your brother they think they better not have any more children because you and your brother are all they can take. So they tell the clinic they will not renew the contract and the clinic can destroy the two human embryos they are keeping for your mother and father. In other words they can destroy your two siblings who are in the freezer. So the clinic then proceeds to take these two human embryos out of the freezer and lets them defrost. They hear how the government will pay scientists to take the stem cells from human embryos to see if they can train these cells to develop into a heart, or kidney or other organ for someone else. Your siblings did not have the chance to be born and grow up into good boys or girls. If they would have grown up and maybe died because of an accident, your mother and father could have allowed their organs to be removed from their bodies and given to someone who needed a new organ. But they did not have the chance to grow up. They were human life in the freezer. They were human life thrown away except for their stem cells. They were used for scientific research. If you can understand this example, then you know why we say we respect life from the moment of conception, which is from the moment of fertilization. If the doctor had not chosen you or your brother but one of your other siblings to place in your mother, you or your brother would be that human embryo discarded and stem cells taken. There are five siblings, five sisters and/or brothers. One was a miscarriage, two were born - a girl and a boy - and two were killed before they could be placed in your mother and develop.
That is why the Holy Father John-Paul II said on July 23, 2001, “A free and virtuous society which America aspires to be must reject practices that devalue and violate human life at any stage of conception until natural death.”
Two Points on How They Were Conceived Let us look at how they were conceived. They were conceived not by the loving and human embrace of their parents in their sexual union, but by the taking of an egg from their mother and the taking of sperms from their father. The joining of the egg and sperm happened with the help of doctors and technicians in a laboratory. The sacredness of their parent's sexual union was not personal to them, but was absent from their conception. This was bad sex. It was not good sex; it was not holy sex. It did not reflect the sacredness of our relationship with God. Their conception was more akin to how cows or zoo animals may be conceived as we strive to be faithful in our stewardship and dominion over God's creation (Genesis 1:28). They were not conceived in accord with the dignity of a human person but as if they were farm animals.
Once conceived, that is once they were human embryos, they were treated as if they were property. Their parents had rights over them. Their parents decided their fate. They served the personal pleasure of their parents. If the parents decided they had enough children, then it was acceptable for the parents to discard the two human embryos in the freezer at the fertility clinic. Once again they were treated as though they could have been a dog or a cat or a chair or a glass. It would have been better had their parents given up their rights to their children who were still human embryos and allowed another couple who wanted children to adopt them. While the adoptive parents would not have been biological parents (as the DNA in the human embryos were from the parents who gave the egg and sperm), the adoptive parents would have experienced pregnancy and birth and joy and excitement of new life as parental parents. In this way, the two human embryos would have been treated as humans and given the chance to be born and make a contribution to the good of humanity.
Once again I repeat the words of his Holiness John-Paul II on July 23, 2001, “A free and virtuous society which America aspires to be must reject practices that devalue and violate human life at any stage of conception until natural death.”
Human Life Developing Let us look at the human embryo developing in the mother's womb. Scientists tell us that according to basic scientific research, the human embryo is human life. The DNA is set at conception, at fertilization. All the human embryo needs is the mother's womb to develop and to be born. The human embryo gradually grows in nine months to a beautiful human baby girl or boy. Within these nine months, the human embryo develops different parts of the human body. No matter what words we use to describe the human embryo's development - zygote, morula, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, and finally new born baby - we are describing the development of a human being. It is human life that is developing. Where along this development can we say we have a right to control our bodies? The human person developing in the mother's womb and the mother who has a human person developing in her womb are both experiencing natural body changes. When this happens, a mother makes room for developing human life and provides nourishment for this development to happen. Whenever an abortionist kills this human life developing, the abortionist is killing human life. If any of us were aborted, we would not be here today to read these words. Our life would have been terminated. We would have been killed. We would not have died as a result of an accident, illness or old age, but by the terrorist act of an abortionist and of the action of our mother.
Culture of Death/Culture of Life Let us now reflect on the culture of death and the culture of life. First let us look at the culture of death. When we hear these words we do not see how we have an attitude in our society's thinking that encourages death. But we do! The attitude supporting a culture of death is anything that encourages us to think, to act, to support a cheapening of human life. Things like drug use, pornography, music that praises killing and violence, movies and entertainment on television and theater that shows abuse of people and persons, racism, prejudice, abortion, euthanasia, failure to bring our children to church and religious instruction, letting society bring up our children with society's values and not God's values, approval of pre-marriage sexuality, approval of the misuse of our sexuality, approval of man and woman living together without being married and living as if they were married. These are some examples of how we maintain a culture, a way of thinking and acting in which society approves and supports a culture of death. When we speak of a culture of life, we are talking about all those activities, thoughts, and actions - which help us be the human person God our creator created us to be. These are knowing what is right and wrong, recognizing we have done wrong and not trying to justify our wrong action as a right action, growing in our relationship with God, accepting to live our life according to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mountain, sacrificing for the common good of our family and of our nation, making a contribution to our church and community, sharing our faith with our children and friends and strangers, developing our talents and sharing these talents with those who need. In this way we are supporting a culture of life. It is human life according to God's way of life.
What is Cloning? Cloning is an extreme form of artificial reproduction. The process begins when an egg is removed from a mother. The nucleus of that egg is destroyed and removed. A second nucleus from a body (somatic) cell of a person in the case of human cloning is injected into the now empty egg, and through the use of an electrical stimulus, the new nucleus is forced to merge with the old empty egg cell. Additional electrical stimuli induce the newly reconstituted egg to begin growing. After several days in a culture medium, the developing embryo is then implanted into the original mother or a surrogate mother and allowed to develop. The off-spring that results is genetically identical to the parent from which the body cell nucleus was harvested. In nature single celled organisms such as bacteria, protozoa, and yeast reproduce by dividing and creating identical offspring in a process called asexual reproduction. Such naturally occurring cloning is part of the way God has created the natural order. In humans and other higher animals, a fertilized egg can divide and create twins - two persons who have identical genetic material, even though they are two unique persons. In the case of artificial cloning such as human cloning, cloning is creating new life (human life) in a way God has not ordained. Cloning is in contrast to natural procreation. In cloning, a child is not created; a child is manufactured. The child is made from a single parent, not parents who are male and female, husband and wife. By contrast, in procreation, parents come together in humility and mutual self-giving to allow God to give their love substance in the form of a baby. Cloning completely alters normal reproduction by making a loving relationship between a husband and wife unnecessary and even eliminates the need to have two sexes involved, since a clone can be developed from only one sex. In short, cloning is a mode of generating human life that violates the dignity of human life at its very beginning and the dignity of parents who cooperate with God in giving existence to new human persons. Just as God's only-begotten Son was “begotten, not made,” so too should human persons, be “begotten, not made.”
Reproductive Cloning and Therapeutic Cloning Reproductive Cloning is the manufacturing of a human person for the purpose of giving birth. Therapeutic Cloning is the manufacturing of a human person for harvesting. Some scientists think that the cloned embryo's stem cells can be harvested, as these stem cells hold potential for treating diseases such as diabetes, stroke, cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Once an egg has been fertilized in the laboratory, it is human life. Once an egg has been cloned in the laboratory, it is human life. Once an egg has been fertilized inside the mother, it is human life. This human life - artificially conceived in the laboratory, cloned in the laboratory, or conceived naturally in the mother - developing in the womb will in nine months be a new born baby. There is no difference between a cloned embryo for reproductive purposes and a cloned embryo for therapeutic purposes. Both reproductive and therapeutic cloning are human life, with the potential for growing into an adult human person. When we destroy a cloned human embryo for harvesting stem cells, whether cloned for reproductive or therapeutic reasons, we are destroying human life. It is an early form of abortion.
Stem Cells Stem cells are fast growing, unspecialized cells that can reproduce themselves and also produce more specialized cells as needed. Scientists hope that stem cell research will lead to treatments for currently incurable brain ailments, spinal cord injuries, and diseases. Scientists have looked upon the stem cells of embryos as good candidates for this kind of treatment. However, science ignores the ethical and moral dimensions of aborting, killing, terminating human life - artificially conceived in the laboratory, cloned in the laboratory, or conceived naturally in the mother. There is another stem cell that is proving beneficial in this effort; namely, adult stem cells. Scientists are discovering that the cells in human blood and the cells in bone marrow have deposits of stem cells which when isolated can be effective in doing many of what they hope embryonic stem cells would do. There is a company for example that will for a $5,000 fee and a $300 annual administrative fee draw blood from a person and filter out the residue for stem cells and store these, should a person need their own stem cells in the future to ward off disease. There are factors why one would what to use their own stem cells. These factors are that when using stem cells from a human embryo, these cells when placed in another person can no longer communicate with one another to properly know what structure of the human body it should form. This sometimes causes cancer cells. Another factor for using an adult stem cell from one's own body is that the body will not reject the cell as a foreign cell. What we find is that it is ethically and morally acceptable to use stem cells from a person already born. It is aborting, killing, terminating human life when we obtain stem cells from a person not yet born.
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