Pope Speaks Against the Perfect Baby

Ok I'm no big fan of preposterous notions of The Perfect Baby, but I've got nothing on the hardball position that we and lots of others predicted would come out of the Vatican once this Pope was named. MSNBC/Reuters reports that he is on the warpath where reprotech is concerned:

ROME - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday condemned genetic engineering and other scientific practices that allow people to select so-called “designer babies” by screening them for defects.

In a speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Church body of experts, the Pope also attacked artificial insemination and the widespread use of medical tests that can detect diseases and inherited disorders in embryos.

“In developed countries, there is a growing interest for the most sophisticated biotechnological research to introduce subtle and extensive eugenics methods in the obsessive search for the ‘perfect child’,” the Pope said.

Clearly no one has apprised the Pope that the critical bioethics issue these days is the fate of the body and child of Anna Nicole Smith, which has turned MSNBC into a 24/7 soap opera. But thank goodness he's protecting us from reproductive technology even in this time of crisis.
[hat tip: Art Caplan]

Papal Statement on Euthanasia

Pope John Paul spoke today of the evils of euthanasia, using interesting new language. He described what he termed as distortion of ethics, namely the conversion of compassion into a "suppression of human life" through the desire to support it. It is not clear to me what the Pope meant, but his words were provocative:

Euthanasia is among the dramas of an ethic that presumes to establish who can live and who must die

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Now Come the Days of the Evil Clones of Death (UPDATED)

Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, revealed from Rome today that human cloning is "more dangerous than weapons of mass destruction." UPDATED: the Cardinal might soon become pope.

Jon Eisenberg on the State of Schiavo: Not Good

The news is not encouraging from Florida on the most significant end-of-life case of the year.

Gov. Bush, the Schindlers and their supporters are now taking a two-pronged approach to forestalling the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube despite the Florida Supreme Court's decision, and so far they have achieved success on both fronts. In the Florida Supreme Court case, Gov. Bush has obtained a 30-day stay of the court's decision in order to to give him time to ask the United States Supreme Court to take the case and issue a further stay. Meanwhile, the Schindlers filed a motion in the trial court asking the judge to hold a retrial on the issue of Terri Schiavo's wishes in light of the Pope's recent statement regarding tube feeding of PVS patients. According to the Schindlers, Terri, who was Catholic, would take the Pope's statement to mean she must remain on tube feeding. The judge denied the motion, citing a prior appellate court determination that Terri "did not regularly attend mass or have a religious advisor who could assist the court in weighing her religious attitude about life-support methods." However, the judge also issued an emergency stay of the feeding-tube removal until December 6, 2004, to give the Schindlers time to appeal this order. No doubt the Schindlers will file an appeal and ask for a further stay from the state Court of Appeal court pending the decision on the appeal. Thus, there are now two temporary stays in place. I think it doubtful that the Supreme Court will take the case and issue a stay, but I think it likely that the Court of Appeal will issue a stay pending its decision on the Pope motion, which will likely last for the better part of a year or longer.

What Happens Next in Schiavo

Jon Eisenberg, author of several amicus briefs in end-of-life cases, reports by email today to the 60 of us who signed the Schiavo brief that:

The Governor's attorneys have announced that they will ask the United States Supreme Court to take the case. Meanwhile, the Schindlers have asked the trial judge to reopen the case and retry the issue of Terri's wishes because of the Pope's recent pronouncement against removal of feeding tubes from PVS patients. I'll keep you apprised of future developments.