The Wisconsin Catholic Conference, public policy voice of Wisconsin's Catholic bishops asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson to rescind current National Institutes of Health guidelines permitting public funding of research that relies on the destruction of human embryos to obtain stem cells for genetic research. The conference also asked that federal guidelines comply with existing federal law, which bans the practice. John Huebscher, WCC executive director, made the request in a March 15 letter to Thompson.
Stem cells are the parent cells of all tissues in the body.
Stem cells may be derived from embryos, from adult human tissues and from umbilical cord blood. In theory, that means scientists can replace diseased tissue with healthy tissue. The versatility of stem cells makes them attractive to researchers working on treatments and cures for a wide range of diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. However, to obtain embryonic stem cells for research, the embryo in which they are developing must be destroyed. When embryonic stem cell research treats embryos as things that can be manufactured, stored, destroyed or donated to science, sacred human life becomes a commodity.