I learnt the other day of The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s release of Dignitas Personae, an updating of its Donum vitae ‘on respect for human life at its origins and for the dignity of procreation’ two decades previous, and which addresses interim developments in fertility treatment, embryonic stem cells, cloning, gene therapy, human-animal hybrids, and research using cells of fetal origin. As I’ve occasionally discussed in these pages, I disagree with the Catholic Church’s conservativeness on these issues, so I’ll not re-iterate my objections here (although I may do in future). Rather, if you are involved in work covered by this document, I recommend taking the time to familiarise yourself with the stance and nuances of its 23 pages.

Wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions now, would we?