21 years of ecumenism leads nowhere

Cathcon translation of Presseportal: Kardinal Lehmann widerspricht Wolfgang Huber in der Stammzelldiskussion


Cardinal Lehmann contradicts Wolfgang Huber in the stem cell discussion. (Background here)

Hamburg (AP) - In the current debate on the stem cell law, the outgoing chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann contradicted the Chairmen of the Council of the Evangelical Church, Wolfgang Huber. "There is no moment in the development, where you could say, where you can say the embryo becomes a person," Lehmann writes in Zeit. Therefore, he opposed a postponement of the deadline date, up to which the stem cell lines for research purposes may be used by German researchers. The Protestant Huber had raised the possibility of the postponement of the deadline until the 1st day May 2007.

The Cardinal criticized the other hand: "In the production of stem cells, the embryo is killed. With this insight, there is no way beyond, also if one rejects with utter moral indignation a 'consumptive embryo research'." In justification, Lehmann writes: "Again and again, an attempt is made to say that only a person is formed at a variety of later phases of development, for example, originating at the implantation, the maturation of the brain or even birth. The person does not become human, but is from the beginning a human being."
The Brothers, behind the President of Germany

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