Participants: More knowledge of embryo's origin, development needed

Published: 2007-11-06

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A better scientific understanding of the origin and development of the human embryo can help answer many of today's hot-button bioethical issues, said participants in a Vatican-sponsored project. Participants in the project, "Science, Technology and the Ontological Quest," were to hold an international conference in Rome Nov. 15-17. It was to bring together medical doctors, scientists, jurists, philosophers and theologians to discuss the genesis of human life. Open, honest and accurate study and debate can help contribute to "an authentic sense of mankind," said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which coordinates the project. The archbishop and others involved in the conference spoke Nov. 6 at a Vatican press conference. Titled "Ontogeny and Human Life," the conference will try to promote dialogue between experts and scholars from different schools of thought, and prompt them to work together "for the quest for truth," said Pietro Ramellini, professor at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum Athenaeum.

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