Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kiev (Fides Service) – Scientists, scholars and journalists from Ukraine, Italy, Poland, Croatia and Belo-Russia took part in a Scientific Symposium promoted by a Ukrainian charitable organisation the Pro-Human Dignity Centre for Bio Ethics. It was a sort of prologue to the International Family-Child-State Congress, which ended on 18 May in the Ukrainian capital. In his opening address at the symposium on Artificial Procreation Technologies and the Future of Ukraine, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said: “believers cannot be forced by the bonds of legislation which protects their conscience they must use all the legal means possible to avoid the loss of human lives and the humiliation of human dignity” . Professor Peter Gusak, who works with the Institution of Family and Married Life at the Catholic University of Ukraine, speaking about Ukrainian law, illustrated with concrete proof that the Ukrainian act of artificial insemination and planting of embryos begun in 1977 attacks the basic rights of man and first of all the right to life. Ukraine today has a very low birth rate due to various reasons such as the economic crisis and the lack of social assistance for large families. But one of the main causes is a national programme for family planning. A conference by Ukrainian theologian Alexander Dobroyer was devoted to the doctrine on human life and dignity in the traditional religions of Ukraine. “We must always remember, the theologian said, the science serves humanity, but it does not maintain it”. AP (Fides Service 21/5/2003 EM lines 29 Words: 319)
