MELBOURNE: 25th February 2005 -- In the wake of decisions already made in the UK and the upcoming Australian Government Parliamentary Review of Human Cloning and Research involving Human Embryos Legislation, Dr Norman Ford SDB, Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre of Health Ethics has led a Symposium on stem cells science, and the ethics of stem cell research.  The Symposium, opened by the Archbishop of Melbourne Denis J Hart DD, was held at Melbourne's major Catholic hospital St Vincent's, on 23rd February.

    Fr Ford's argument has been, for some time now, to put public funding towards the already medically-backed notion that certain adult stem cells are 'pluripotent' in the way that embryonic stem cells are regarded to be.  These adult stem cells are culled from umbilical cord blood and their culling clearly represents no danger to the embryo.  An additional possibility is to draw pluripotent material from ectopic foetuses.  These stem cell lines could be ethically employed in regenerative medicine.

    The Australian medical scene had a number of 'firsts' in the genetic field, especially in the early days of IVF experimentation.  It was at that time that Fr Ford, with his training in moral philosophy, concentrated fully on the ethical implications of many aspects of genetic science.  He is widely regarded as an expert in the moral aspects, but many of the medical researchers themselves consider the 'doctor' to be as knowledgeable as themselves in many of the straight medical aspects of their field.  The respect gained on both sides, as one who is faithful to Catholic teaching but still able to probe the fuzzy edges, has meant that his voice carries some weight with legislators and researchers alike.

    Fr Ford's message to the Australian Parliamentary review this time round is unequivocal: "There is no ethical justification to legalise the destruction of 'spare' IVF embryos or cloned human embryos to obtain ES (embryonic stem) cells for therapeutic purposes or medical research. It would be an awesome responsibility for parliamentarians to assume to permit the creation of IVF or cloned human embryos for destructive research".

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