TO CATHOLIC DOCTORS: BE PRO-LIFE, NOT MANIPULATORS OF LIFE

VATICAN CITY, JUN 18, 2001 (VIS) - "You are reflecting on your future in the light of the fundamental right to medical training and practice according to conscience," the Holy Father told the 120 participants in the International Congress of Catholic Obstetricians and Gynecologists whom he received this morning. He told them that Catholic morality demanded that they defend life, not manipulate it.

He underscored that "Christian obstetricians, gynecologists and obstetric nurses are always called to be servants and guardians of life." Citing "Evangelium Vitae," he added: "But your profession has become still more important and your responsibility still greater 'in today's cultural and social context, in which science and the practice of medicine risk losing sight of their inherent ethical dimension, (and) health-care professionals can be strongly tempted at times to become manipulators of life, or even agents of death'."

"Until quite recently, medical ethics in general and Catholic morality were rarely in disagreement. Without problems of conscience, Catholic doctors could generally offer patients all that medical science afforded. But this has now changed profoundly. The availability of contraceptive and abortive drugs, new threats to life in the laws of some countries, some of the uses of prenatal diagnosis, the spread of in vitro fertilization techniques, the consequent production of embryos to deal with fertility, but also their destination to scientific research, the use of embryonic stem cells for the development of tissue for transplants to cure degenerative diseases and projects of full or partial cloning, already done with animals: all of these have changed the situation radically. Moreover, conception, pregnancy and childbirth ... are often perceived as a burden and even as an ailment to be cured, rather than being seen as a gift from God."

John Paul II underlined that "Catholic obstetricians and gynecologists ... are (today) exposed to a social ideology which asks them to be agents of a concept of 'reproductive health' based on new reproductive technologies. ... The conflict between social pressure and the demands of right conscience can lead to the dilemma either of abandoning the medical profession or of compromising one's convictions. Faced with that tension, we must remember that there is a middle path. ... It is the path of conscientious objection, which ought to be respected by all, especially legislators."

The Pope closed by remarking that "Catholic universities and hospitals are called to follow the directives of the Church's Magisterium in every aspect of obstetric and gynecological practice, including research involving embryos."

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