Amendment 2 - Exploitation of and Dangers to Women

Today's article by Archbishop Burke touches on several aspects of the dangers to which women will be exposed should they choose to sell their eggs to those who facilitate the murder of innocent human life.

He also touches on the fact that the act of subjecting oneself to the harvesting of one's eggs for embryonic stem cell research is, not only dangerous, but a grave, mortal sin.

We must be deeply concerned since this grave matter before us (Amendment 2) will lead to the exploitation of poor and young woman who will be become the next "commodities" in a market eager for eggs for cloning...and the dangers these women will face are very real, indeed.

In the discussion of the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the State of Missouri, known as Amendment 2, on the ballot for this coming Nov. 7, a most important consideration is the exploitation of women, which it involves. As a shepherd of God’s flock, I am deeply concerned for all involved in the evils of human cloning and the destruction of the human embryo to harvest its stem cells. My first concern, of course, is for the most innocent and defenseless humans involved, namely the human embryos cloned through somatic cell nuclear transfer.

I am also deeply concerned for the women who are necessarily involved in the process of human cloning. In order to perform human cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer, scientists must first procure human eggs from which to remove the nucleus, in order to replace it with the nucleus of a somatic or body cell of the donor with whom the cloned human will be identical. Human cloning requires the harvesting of eggs from women who are exploited to accomplish the purposes of its proponents. As Christians, we must address the immorality of such exploitation.

Read Archbishop Burke's column here.