Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life groups are responding to today's news that two teams of scientists have been able to create embryonic stem cells without destroying human life. The destruction of days-old unborn children has been the chief obstacle preventing pro-life advocates from supporting the controversial research.

However, as LifeNews.com reported Tuesday, scientists in Japan and Wisconsin say they have been able to get adult human skin cells to revert to their embryonic state.

Pro-life advocates initially appear to support the new process and say it could be an alternative way to use embryonic stem cells in research that could bridge the stem cell research divide.

Richard Doerflinger, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and one of the leading bioethics watchdogs for the pro-life community, appeared supportive.

He told the Associated Press the new work is "a very significant breakthrough in finding morally unproblematic alternatives to cloning."

"I think this is something that would be readily acceptable [to pro-life people]," he added. "It's a win for science and for ethics."

"I think this is a wonderful advance for basic research in stem cells and maybe some day for regenerative medicine," Doerflinger added in a Reuters interview.

Dorinda Bordlee, an attorney with the Bioethics Defense Fund, which helped lead the legal battle against the pro-cloning Amendment 2 in Missouri, told LifeNews.com she was also excited about the news.

"This remarkable scientific advance has the potential to bring all sides of the human cloning debate together in a common quest for aggressive yet ethical stem cell research," Bordlee said.

Bordlee noted that the scientist who originally cloned Dolly, Professor Ian Wilmut, has already announced that he was abandoning his license to clone human embryos in favor of the direct reprogramming method.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center also chimed in on the new research, telling LifeNews.com in a statement that it "affects the ethical discussion around stem cells in a very positive way."

"Such strategies should continue to be pursued and strongly promoted, as they should help to steer the entire field of stem cell research in a more explicitly ethical direction by circumventing the moral quagmire associated with destroying human embryos," the group said.

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More Pro-Life Groups Applaud Ethical Embryonic Stem Cell Research Method
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 21, 2007

Below is a sampling of some of the pro-life groups and leaders who have contacted LifeNews.com with their take on the new method.

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council President: "Yamanaka and Thomson are to be congratulated for pushing forward the frontiers of science and demonstrating that good science can also satisfy ethical requirements. Coupled with the recent announcement by Dr. Ian Wilmut, cloner of Dolly the sheep, that he is shelving cloning as an unproductive technique in favor of this new ethical method, dubious experiments involving embryo cloning and embryo destruction are being rendered obsolete."

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: "This technology avoids the many ethical landmines associated with embryonic stem cell research: it does not clone or destroy human embryos, does not harm or exploit women for their eggs, and does not blur the line between human beings and other species through desperate efforts to make human embryos using animal eggs."

"Once again science is catching up to ethics, proving that the moral way is the most sound, scientific choice. This breakthrough allows scientists to further their research and continue to develop medical advances while still honoring the sanctity of life" said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America.

Americans United for Life president Clarke Forsythe: "This tremendous breakthrough is both ethically and scientifically sound."

Mary Kay Culp, Executive Director of Kansans for Life: This ought to cause a sea change in public policy in Missouri and Kansas. Whether or not it does depends on the willingness of organizations like Stowers to choose this ethical alternative to the human cloning research in which they are so heavily invested."