The Vatican released a bioethics document on Friday officially updating its opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, in-vitro fertilization and human cloning.
The document also said it approved of some forms of gene therapy and encouraged stem cell research using adult cells. And it said parents could in good conscience inoculate their children with vaccines produced with cells derived from aborted fetuses.
Many in the religious sects awaited a more official ruling on new drugs that block pregnancy from taking hold.
Several of these controversial drugs like the so-called "morning-after pill" and RU-486, which blocks the action of hormones needed to keep a fertilized egg implanted in the uterus, as well as the IUD (intrauterine device), which has been in use for decades, were deemed to fall "within the sin of abortion" and are gravely immoral.
The document, by far the most authoritative of its kind from the Vatican in 20 years, said human life deserved respect "from the very first stages of its existence (and) can never be reduced merely to a group of cells."
The Vatican's overall position is formed by its belief that human life begins at conception, and must be afforded all the consequent respect and dignity from that moment on.
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