Stem Cell Researchers could be excommunicated

[The Mad Hatter]

Prominent cardinal attacks science behind stem cells (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125603.400-prominent-cardinal-attacks-science-behind-stem-cells-.html)



Head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, Trujillo is the most senior Catholic official so far to proclaim on the morality of stem cell research. "Destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion," he said in an interview in the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana on 2 July. "Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law."

On a positive note, maybe this will discourage people from becoming catholic...

[Ossai]

Question,
Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law." Could it not be argued that the RC Church is attempting to unduly entangle itself with government and thereby have it’s tax exempt status be revoked? The whole statement is nothing more than an threat.

[Alphaba]

After the Banned from Loose Change (http://forums.randi.org/imagehost/3617447af14678684.jpg) badge, it is perhaps time to create the Excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church one? Quite honorific a distinction that one would be for critical thinkers, skeptics, and other free thinkers...

[Abdul Alhazred]

They're excommunicated? A big so what.

Will this actually deter any scientist from doing the research?

They will keep their jobs (and their heads), and the neighbors will still be willing to talk to them.

They just aren't allowed to take communion any more. Unless they join some other church.

This isn't the 1600s, even if the Vatican hasn't figured that out.

[Ossai]

Abdul Alhazred
Will this actually deter any scientist from doing the research?

They will keep their jobs (and their heads), and the neighbors will still be willing to talk to them.

They just aren't allowed to take communion any more. Unless they join some other church. It’s not the scientists that I was wondering about. Specifically I was wondering about the politicians and to what acts they would go if they perceived it would increase their vote count.

Ossai