Pontifical academy for the life

The pontifical Academy for the life (in Italian Pontificia Accademia per Vita ) is an independent institution sitting at the the Vatican, founded by the Pape Jean-Paul II the February 11th 1994, in the Motu landlord Vitae Mysterium ( Of the mystery of the life ).

Mission

While remaining independent, the pontifical academy for the life has the role to work in close connection with the pontifical Conseil for the pastoral one of the health services. It received for mission “of studying, of informing and of forming” about the “biomedical and legal main issues relating to the promotion and the defense of the life, especially in the report/ratio which they have with Christian morals and the directives of the Magistère of the Church”.

Organization

The Academy was founded in close relationship with the French pediatrist and geneticist Jerome Lejeune (1926 - 1994), discoverer of additional chromosome 21 of the Trisomie 21 in 1958, which agreed the proposal of the Pape to become the first president about it, task which was stopped by its death on April 3rd 1994. Jean-Paul II had then named, to succeed to him, the Chilean doctor Juan de Dios Vial Correa then, in 2004, the Italian Elio Sgreccia, titular bishop of Zama undervalues.

M gr. Sgreccia is assisted, since the January 24th 2006, by the French Jean Laffitte, under-secretary of the pontifical Council for the since January 2005 family, Doctor of Divinity, member of the charismatic community of Emmanuel, former teacher in various catholic establishments of Rome.

The president of the Academy, which moreover is assisted of a collegial council and an ecclesiastical adviser, has as a role to convene the Parliament, to stimulate the activity, to approve the annual programming and to supervise the administration, in accordance with the statutes.

The members of the Academy are named by the pope, who endeavors to represent the various branches of biomedical sciences, more particularly of those which are concerned with the promotion and the defense of the life. He can moreover name corresponding members working in other fields.

The plenary assembly of the Academy usually meets in the current of February.

Ethical choice

In 2000, the academy invites to make act of “moral conscientious objection” against the pill of the following day which would constitute an aggression with regard to the human embryo, since this pill prevents the nesting of an ovule already fertilized.

Appendices

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