LIFE condemns 'barbaric' stem cell bank

Prolife charity LIFE, has condemned as 'barbaric' the British government's plan to establish the world's first human stem cell bank using embryos left over from IVF treatment or produced by cloning. "In all cases, having been stripped of their stem cells, these embryos will then be killed" spokeswoman Nuala Scarisbrick, said today. "We have to keep on saying one simple thing: these embryos are real living human beings. That is the crucial, central fact. "They deserve the same respect which is due to human life at every stage of its development. To say that they are less valuable, less deserving of the protection of the law because they are small and vulnerable is crude ageism and sizeism. "To create human beings with the deliberate intention of stripping them of their stem cells and killing them is barbaric. Human beings must never be treated as things, or like laboratory mice. Human beings must not be used in experiments without their consent. "We all want to conquer diseases like Parkinson's but the good end cannot justify immoral means. We should not be manipulating and exploiting human life in this way. "Moreover we do not have to. Adult stem cells provide what is probably a complete alternative way of achieving those medical triumphs which we all hope for. "The proposed stem cell bank will be a monument to runaway biotechnology and the present government's apparently insatiable desire to put Britain at the forefront of scientific progress, even though this means the wanton trivialisation of human life."