The reading this Sunday from the Book of Sirach advises us on how to conduct ourselves in order to find favor with God. On the question of how to conduct stem cell research, a federal judge and the Obama administration differ sharply.

Guidelines issued by the administration last year to expand the scope of stem cell research did not find favor with U.S. federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth, who struck them down Monday.

Lamberth blocked President Obama’s 2009 executive order that expanded embryonic stem cell research, ruling all embryonic stem cell research by nature requires the destruction of embryos and therefore violates a Congressional ban on federal funding of such research. Administraiton officials are considering an appeal.

Monday’s ruling involved a lawsuit against the National Health Institute filed by researchers opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells; a group that seeks adoptive parents for human embryos created through in-vitro fertilization; the non-profit Christian Medical Association; and other groups.

From the other side, Dr. Irving L. Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, said the ruling was “devastating to the hopes of researchers and patients who have been waiting so long for the promise of stem cell therapies.” Weissman said he hoped that the judge’s ruling would be overturned.

In the gospel this Sunday, Jesus encourages us to embrace and serve those who suffer; we are instructed to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” to our banquets. Some scientists believe embryonic stem cells could help treat many otherwise incurable diseases and disabilities because of their potential to develop into many different cell types in the body.

But the field of embryonic stem cells has been highly controversial because the research process involves destroying the embryo, typically four or five days old, after removing stem cells. For those who believe that life begins at conception, as the Catholic Church teaches, such a procedure amounts to the taking of human life.

As with many of the day’s most difficult moral and ethical questions, embryonic stem cell research brings into conflict two important values—protecting innocent life on the one hand, while on the other, doing all we can to alleviate the suffering of those around us.

Source: Articles by Shelby Lin Erdman for CNN and Gardiner Harris for the New York Times