Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Fides Service) - The Spanish Congress approved the Ley sobre Técnicas de Reproducción Humana Asistida which allows therapeutic cloning, genetic selection and production of embryos and the faculty to destroy them as if they were objects, with no limit to the fertilisation of eggs. Various voices have been raised to condemn the law seen as a serious attack on human life and dignity. The Spanish Bishops recall a Note published by their Executive Committee on 9 February which affirmed “methods which replace the personal act of parents in procreation offend the dignity of the person and bring with them serious harm to persons including serious attacks on the unborn child”.
Scientific platform Hay Alternativas protests against the approval of a law which fails to protect the human embryo. Hay Alternativas says the law renders the unborn child material for research, goods subject to economic interests of large companies and the ambitions of certain circles of science. For the platform president Ms Joya "with this law science puts itself at the service of ideologies and industries ".
The president of HazteOir Ignacio Arsuaga criticised the law because “it is a serious attack on human life. The people who approved the law forget that the only possible progress is ethical and that history is filled with examples of abuse in the name of technological progress”. Arsuaga said the law “goes against various international conventions signed by Spain, such as the Charter on Fundamental Rights of the European Union which bans eugenic practices and recognises the right to life of every person, a right recognised by Constitution of the European Union; a European Parliament resolution 7 December 2000, which considers therapeutic cloning contrary to policies promoted by the EU and also the EU Congress Agreement on Human Rights and Bio Ethics, (known also as the Oviedo Agreement) which banned the creation of embryos for experiments”.
The head of the department of Bio-pathology at La Fe University Hospital in Valencia and member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Dr. Justo Aznar, said that with the new law Spain has “taken a giant step on the unhappy path towards the legalisation of the most inhuman treatment of embryos, undoubtedly the weakest of the most fragile of living human beings”. Dr. Aznar warned that the law will allow the use of "the biological term ‘pre-embryo’ totally in disuse" which aims to manipulate the embryo without any ethical responsibility. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 15/5/2006; righe 33, parole 448)
