STATEMENT FROM THE DIOCESE OF WILMINGTON ON THE PASSAGE OF SB 80 AS AMENDED:

January 18, 2006 5:00 p.m. - The Diocese of Wilmington thanks the Delaware House of Representatives for rejecting those provisions of SB 80 that would have permitted the destruction of human embryos for the purpose of obtaining human embryonic stem cells.  As thousands of Delawareans of all faiths have told the General Assembly over the past month, human life is precious and should never be destroyed for medical experiments.

The version of SB 80 that passed the Delaware House of Representitives today outlaws human reproductive cloning in Delaware but still permits other types of cloning.  While the Diocese of Wilmington agrees that human reproductive cloning is a gravely immoral practice that should be banned, we beleive that the bill should ban all human cloning in the State because human cloning is wrong and should not be permitted.  Thus, the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington does not endorse the bill as amended.