A Vatican bioethics document Friday condemned artificial fertilization and other techniques used by many couples and also said human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research and “morning after” drugs were immoral.

The long awaited document from the Vatican’s doctrinal body marks a major step by the Vatican into biotechnology, an area in which many governments are struggling to formulate legislation.

The document also condemns new drugs that block pregnancy from taking hold, such as the morning-after pill and the drug RU-486, which blocks the action of hormones needed to keep a fertilized egg implanted in the uterus.

These drugs, as well as the IUD, or intrauterine device, which has been in use for decades, are deemed to fall “within the sin of abortion.”


“Dignitas Personae [dignity of a person], an Instruction of Certain Bioethical Questions,” is an attempt to bring the Roman Catholic Church up to date with recent advances in science and medicine.

The document, the most authoritative of its kind from the Vatican in 20 years, says human life deserves respect “from the very first stages of its existence [and] can never be reduced merely to a group of cells.”

The 35-page document says that only adult stem cell research is moral because embryonic stem cell research involves the destruction of embryos.

It also condemns freezing embryos, in-vitro fertilization and cloning.