Ireland's Catholic bishops have rejected 31 of the 40 recommendations of the Government-appointed Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction.
In a statement issued at the end of their three-day winter meeting in Maynooth yesterday, they described as "totally unacceptable" the commission recommendation that "the embryo formed by IVF should not attract legal protection until placed in the human body, at which stage it should attract the same level of protection as the embryo formed 'in vivo' ".
The bishops said that "once fertilisation is complete, the organism has become a human being. There is nothing else it can be. . . It has its own substantial form, the human soul, which is its first principle of life."
They pointed out that "the right to conduct research is not an absolute right. Irrespective of what positive law may decide, human embryos - as genetically distinct individuals of the human species - have natural rights which cannot be ignored."
Welcoming the commission recommendation that embryos should not be generated specifically for research purposes, they go on to suggest that the recommendation is itself illogical.
"Either embryos are entitled to have their right to life respected, in which case this recommendation is appalling, or they are not so entitled, in which case there is no reason for the restrictions," they said. This illogicality, they said, "is a result of the commission's never having faced up to the fundamental question of the status of the embryo".
On cloning, they argued that a distinction by the commission between "therapeutic" cloning and "reproductive" cloning "is a totally spurious one, which has no basis in fact", pointing out that "human cloning, irrespective of its ultimate purpose, would always be reproductive in that the immediate result of cloning would be the generation of a human embryo."
On the freezing of embryos, they considered that "many of the ethical difficulties which arise in assisted human reproduction result from the decision to produce so-called 'surplus' embryos." Expressing reservations about the terminology, they said that "while some embryos may be surplus to the requirements of the couple, we don't believe that any human embryo can really be considered as surplus because each embryo is primarily for itself and not for anyone else."
A detailed response by the bishops to the commission recommendations is being published in a document titled Towards a Creative Response to Infertility.
In yesterday's statement the bishops described growing violence in Irish society as "a deeply worrying aspect of our lives which is a cause of deep concern for all of us". They called for "an ongoing debate to be managed by our elected representatives and civic leaders both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland , in order to devise ways to counteract the rising level of violence in our communities".
Praising the Garda and the PSNI, they said that "fundamentally, our society needs a moral revolution to replace a culture of violence with a renewed ethic of justice, responsibility and community. New policies and programmes, while necessary, cannot substitute for a recovery of the old values of right and wrong, respect and responsibility, love and justice."
They also published a national directory and norms for the permanent diaconate, now approved by the Vatican. The new deacons will be men aged over 25 for celibate candidates, and over 35 for those who are married. The latter must have the formal approval of their wives before entering the diaconate. They will also "have good knowledge of the Gospel, a well established spiritual life, and a proven willingness to serve others, even at some personal cost".
