Cardinal: Those involved in stem-cell research face excommunication

Published: 2006-06-30

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Female egg donors, doctors and researchers involved in the destruction of embryos for stem-cell studies can face excommunication, said the head of the Vatican's family council. Because embryonic stem-cell research involves the destruction of a human embryo and therefore human life, "it is the same thing" as abortion and similarly entails excommunication, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said in a recent magazine interview. Italy's leading Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, published the interview with the Colombian cardinal in its July 2 issue, released June 28. "To destroy the embryo is equivalent to an abortion," he said, "and the excommunication applies to the woman, the doctors, the researchers who eliminate embryos."

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