Stem Cells - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 57

does not claim to know precisely when ensoulment occurs, but it chooses
to give full moral status to the conceptus in order to be on the safe side.
in August 2000 the Pontifical Academy for life reiterated the Catholic
Church's position that personhood begins at conception and condemned
the use of human esCs because human embryos are destroyed: 13
The Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result
of human procreation, from the first moment of its existence, must
be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the
human being in his or her totality and unity in body and spirit: The
human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the mo-
ment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights
as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the
inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. (Pontifical
Academy for life 2000)
Joining the roman Catholic Church in giving the laboratory-generated
conceptus personhood status and opposing esC research and use are the
holy synod of Bishops of the orthodox Church in America and the south-
ern Baptist Convention. Unclear is whether these institutions considered
the twenty-four-hour lag after conception and before fertilization while
forming positions on personhood.
other Christian denominations take stands in the esC debate without
formal declarations on the beginning of personhood. The 2001 General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (UsA), a group of elected represen-
tatives from the denomination, endorsed the use of esCs for research and
therapy so long as they are derived from “embryos that do not have a chance
of growing into personhood because the woman has decided to discontinue
further (ivf) treatments and they are not available for donation to another
woman for personal or medical reasons, or because a donor is not available”
(Presbyterian Church 2001). The 2004 General Conference of the United
methodist Church adopted a similar position, resolving that the conference