USCCB Official Hails Enactment of Cord Blood Stem Cell Legislation
WASHINGTON(December 20, 2005)--After attending President Bush’s signing into
law of the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 (H.R. 2520/S. 1317),
Richard M. Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life
Activities, issued the following statement:
“This is wonderful news for the many thousands of suffering patients who can
benefit from umbilical cord blood stem cell treatments. We are grateful to
Congress and the President for enacting this legislation without further delay.
“The House of Representatives passed Rep. Chris Smith’s legislation, to support
and coordinate a nationwide public bank of cord blood stem cells, almost
unanimously on May 24. Yet this urgently needed life-saving legislation was
blocked for months in the Senate, held hostage to debates over far more
controversial and speculative stem cell research requiring the destruction of
human embryos. In the last days of this session the deadlock was finally ended,
and Congress agreed on the kind of stem cell treatments that can begin saving
patients’ lives here and now.
“As Cardinal Keeler, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life
Activities, said in his July 11 letter urging Senate approval of this bill:
‘Umbilical cord blood stem cells have successfully treated thousands of patients
with dozens of diseases. They also exhibit properties once associated chiefly
with embryonic stem cells: They grow rapidly in culture, producing enough cells
to be clinically useful in both children and adults; they can treat patients who
are not an exact genetic match, without being rejected as foreign tissue; and
they seem able to produce a wide array of different cell types.’”
“As Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, how appropriate that we can also
celebrate the medical miracles made possible by cord blood retrieved immediately
after live births. Congress and the President have given a wonderful Christmas
present to patients in need.”
The full text of Cardinal Keeler’s July 11 letter is available at
www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/stemcell/keelercord.pdf.
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