Fr. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. has succinctly assessed the scientific and philosophical merits of an article published by the National Catholic Reporter, "It's Easy To Be Mislead about Stem Cell Research."

The author of the NCR article, Bill Tammeus, confesses that he is "a Protestant not obligated to follow Church teaching on this subject." His purpose in writing the article, however, is to suggest that those who are otherwise obligated are misled in thinking and speaking of early stem cells as "embryonic."

In clearing up the scientific and philosophical confusion behind Bill Tammeus's article, Fr. Austriaco repeats a number of basic but important points related to the ethics of cloning and stem cell research. He makes clear that while an embryo and a maturely grown adult are not developed to the same degree, they are the same organism. He clarifies that cloning through "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT) truly produces a human embryo, and that stem cells consequently harvested are properly embryonic of the human person. Finally, he shows that even though the cloned human embryo does not result from the union bewteen the sperm and the egg, this does not establish that it is non-human... since the same is the case for one of every pair of twins!

For Fr. Austriaco's full article, visit the "Catholic Bioethics Channel" that he and other friars from our province administer at Catholic Exchange.