PARIS, DEC. 9, 2000 (ZENIT.org).- One of the logical consequences of
abortion has been the depersonalization of the human fetus. Deprived of the
right to life, the fetus has been targeted by researchers as a handy source
of raw material for their experiments and medical treatments.

Despite protests, this practice continues and in some cases is being
expanded. Toward the end of November the French government announced a
proposal to allow research using human embryos. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin
favors the use of stem cells for experiments into new medical treatments. He
also favors human cloning for therapeutic ends, though not for reproduction.

The government's decision was taken after the conclusion of a study by the
National Consultative Committee of Ethics on Health and Life Sciences
(CCNE), charged with reviewing bioethics laws. This 18-member committee
would be entrusted to keep watch over research in this field.

Researchers likely will first use the frozen embryos left over from in-vitro
fertilization treatments as a source of cells. Currently there are 50,000 of
these embryos in France. After this supply runs out, cloning of adult cells
would be used to produce additional embryos for experiments and medical
treatment.

In another move toward the use of fetal tissues for medical uses, doctors in
France have declared they will use fetal cells to treat patients, The
Independent newspaper of Britain reported Nov. 30. Researchers at Inserm, a
medical institute in Paris, have transplanted stem cells from fetuses into
the brains of people with Huntington's disease. Of five patients treated,
three reportedly benefited from the treatment.

The findings, due for publication in The Lancet today, were released after
they were leaked to a French newspaper. The Independent speculated that the
announcement of the French team's findings would boost supporters of the
cloning of embryos for therapeutic purposes. A similar proposal to allow
therapeutic cloning is being debated in Britain.

If the early findings from the French research are confirmed, cells could be
extracted and cloned from Huntington's sufferers in childhood to produce
stem cells, which could be frozen and transplanted back into them when they
developed the disease as adults.

British doctors use fetal cells

On Oct. 1 the British paper The Observer reported that scientists had
secretly carried out four operations using tissue taken from aborted fetuses
in a bid to save patients from brain diseases. The surgery, which was
condemned by pro-life groups, is believed to be the first operation
involving fetal cell transplants since the technique was abandoned in
Britain a decade ago.

Two centers were involved in the work: Cambridge University's Center for
Brain Repair at Addenbrooke's Hospital, and King's College Hospital, London.
As in the French case the patients were suffering from Huntington's disease,
a fatal, inherited brain ailment.

The decision to harvest material from aborted fetuses has provoked outrage.
A Catholic Church spokesman said such operations could encourage the idea
that it was acceptable to kill a child to save an adult, while Jack
Scarisbrick, of the anti-abortion group Life, said the operations were a
further assault on the unborn. "They give false legitimacy to terminations
by suggesting they give hope to others," he said.

The Observer noted that in the late 1980s similar reactions greeted news
that surgeons in Birmingham -- led by Edward Hitchcock of the Midland Center
for Neurosurgery and Neurology -- had carried out fetal-cell transplants for
Parkinson's disease patients. The outcry led to the abandonment of such
operations.

Further protests resulted recently from the news that a hospital had
accumulated 400 fetuses which were miscarried, stillborn or aborted. The
fetuses were stored without their parents' consent at Alder Hey hospital in
Liverpool, according to The Guardian on Nov. 14.

All but 80 of the fetuses originated from two maternity hospitals in the
city. The others were from other hospitals around the northwest. The
fetuses, which range in development from early pregnancy to almost full
term, were sent to Alder Hey for post-mortem examinations between 1988 and
1995. The hospital was already being investigated for the removal and
storage of organs of 893 babies and children.

Kate Jackson, of Alder Hey's Serious Incident Project Board, said the
hospital was aware that a number of fetuses had been retained. "We do not
contact families proactively," she said. "Many families will not want to be
reminded. We do rely on parents to contact the hospital."

Experiments in the United States

Lack of respect for human embryos also exists in the United States.
According to an Oct. 25 report in the Ottawa Citizen, U.S. scientists have
created human embryos for the sole purpose of research.

Researchers from the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at Eastern
Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk, used eggs and sperm donated from young,
healthy donors to create 40 embryos. The researchers then retrieved human
embryonic stem cells, cells that are capable of growing into virtually any
cell, tissue or organ in the human body.

Two months earlier, U.S. President Bill Clinton unveiled new guidelines
allowing scientists to conduct federally funded research on human embryonic
stem cells, but only if they use "spare" embryos left over from in-vitro
fertilization attempts. The rules, however, will not apply to privately
funded research.

In Canada, there are no laws dealing with issues of embryonic research, the
Ottawa Citizen said. In 1997 the Liberals let die Bill C47, which would have
included restrictions on embryo research. Canada has only a voluntary
moratorium in place, though it doesn't cover research on human embryos.

The Ottawa Citizen quoted Margaret Somerville, of McGill University's Center
for Medicine, Ethics and Law, as saying, "To transmit human life for no
purpose other than its intentional destruction, we have to ask, 'Are we
ethically justified in doing that?'" Creating embryos for research and then
destroying them, she said, "is a failure to show respect for human life."

The current rash of medicine's ethical shortcomings seems to bolster the
argument that John Paul II made five years ago in his encyclical "Evangelium
Vitae." In it, he warned that, under the pretext of scientific or medical
progress, human life is reduced to the level of mere biological material,
which can be freely disposed of. These aberrations would be avoided, he
wrote, only if the principle of human dignity from the moment of conception
is accepted. Whether researchers and doctors will heed that advice is yet to
be seen.
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