Dignitatis Personae

(Summarized by the Catholic News Agency)

Third Part:

New Treatments which Involve the Manipulation of
the Embryo or the Human Genetic Patrimony

The therapeutic use of stem cells 

"Stem cells are undifferentiated cells with two basic characteristics: a) the prolonged capability of multiplying themselves while maintaining the undifferentiated state; b) the capability of producing transitory progenitor cells from which fully differentiated cells descend, for example, nerve cells, muscle cells and blood cells.  Once it was experimentally verified that when stem cells are transplanted into damaged tissue they tend to promote cell growth and the regeneration of the tissue, new prospects opened for regenerative medicine, which have been the subject of great interest among researchers throughout the world” (n. 31). 

For the ethical evaluation, it is necessary above all to consider the methods of obtaining stem cells.

  • “Methods which do not cause serious harm to the subject from whom the stem cells are taken are to be considered licit.  This is generally the case when tissues are taken from: a) an adult organism; b) the blood of the umbilical cord at the time of birth; c) fetuses who have died of natural causes” (n. 32).
  • “The obtaining of stem cells from a living human embryo…invariably causes the death of the embryo and is consequently gravely illicit… In this case, research…is not truly at the service of humanity.  In fact, this research advances through the suppression of human lives that are equal in dignity to the lives of other human individuals and to the lives of the researchers themselves” (n. 32).
  • “The use of embryonic stem cells or differentiated cells derived from them – even when these are provided by other researchers through the destruction of embryos or when such cells are commercially available – presents serious problems from the standpoint of cooperation in evil and scandal” (n. 32).

Numerous studies, however, have shown that adult stem cells give more positive results than embryonic stem cells.