Intercessions for Life
October 2001
For the grace to defend the Gospel of Life,
that every baptized man and woman
might defend by word and example
the inalienable right to life
from conception to natural death;
We pray to the Lord:
For a spirit of gracefulness and care
for all parents and grandparents,
that we might honor all who have chosen
the inestimable value of parental love;
We pray to the Lord:
For the gift of faith,
that we might see God's face
in the hungry, the abused, the homeless,
and all who are forgotten;
We pray to the Lord:
For scientists and medical researchers,
that all might use the gifts of intellect and ingenuity
for the glory of God
and the protection of the lives he has placed into their hands;
We pray to the Lord:
The Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result of human procreation] from the first moment of its existence ... demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily or spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception. (I.1)
—Donum Vitae (Instruction on Respect for Human Life In its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987)
To use human embryos or fetuses as the object or instrument of experimentation constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings having a right to the same respect that is due to the child already born and to every human person.
—Donum Vitae (Instruction on Respect for Human Life In its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987)
It is a duty to condemn the particular gravity of the voluntary destruction of human embryos obtained 'in vitro' for the sole purpose of research. (I.5). —Donum Vitae (Instruction on Respect for Human Life In its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987)
No objective, even though noble in itself, such as foreseeable advantage to science, to other human beings or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or fetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother's womb.(I.4)
—Donum Vitae (Instruction on Respect for Human Life In its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987)