The Spanish Episcopal Conference's executive committee proposes
"unfreezing" spare human embryos in artificial fertility clinics over
using them for research material.
The note was published in response to the reform of the present law in force --
On Techniques of Assisted Reproduction -- communicated by the Council of
Ministers on July 25. According to health minister Ana Pastor, this law allows
experimentation with "crioconserved" embryos over five years old,
with the consent of the parents.
According to official figures, there are some 35,000 "spare" embryos in
assisted fertilization clinics in Spain, although other sources say the figure
is more than 200,000.
The note is forceful in stating that "possible research carried out on
human embryos, which causes harm or death" would be morally illicit.
Point 6 of the note, published on the Web page http://www.conferenciaepiscopal.es,
also clarifies that "to keep frozen human embryos is an abusive situation
against those lives, which can be compared to therapeutic cruelty."
Therefore, the episcopal committee proposes the unfreezing of the embryos to
put "an end to such an abuse" and allow "nature to take its
course, namely, to produce death."
"To allow to die in peace is not the same as to kill," the note states,
referring to the scientific research that implies the conscious suppression of
the embryos.
"The suspension of the freezing should not be done in such a way that it
becomes the direct cause of the embryos' death, nor can it be accompanied by
any other action that causes death," the document explains.
In any case, this is considered the "lesser evil," as "the good
thing would have been never to allow the accumulation of frozen embryos; then
the decision would not have to be made now about their unfreezing and their
end."
Embryos, "unfrozen in the circumstances mentioned, could be considered
"donors." According to the note, the cells of these embryos
"could be used for research in the framework of strict control, similar to
that established for the use of organs or tissues from deceased persons who
donated them for this purpose."
The Spanish Episcopal Conference insists that the human embryo "merits the
respect accorded to the human person."
"It is not a thing or a mere aggregate of living cells, but the first
stage of the existence of a human being," it emphasizes. Therefore,
"it is not licit to deprive embryos of life or do anything with them that
is not in their own benefit."
The note of the Episcopate's executive committee describes the name pre-embryo
as "linguistic fiction," an attempt to "suggest that in the 14
days following fertilization only a pre-human reality exists that does not
merit the respect due to human beings."
The note does not propose that those embryos be given for adoption, as Spanish
associations suggested to the government, an argument which at present is the
focus of debate of bioethics experts even within the Catholic Church.