FERTILITY CLINIC CLOSED

Next time a conservative religious leader tells you that the 
religious *really* don't want to legislate morals, just say to 
yourself "Remember Poland."

It seems that Novum, a fertility clinic in Warsaw, was trying to 
help infertile couples have children. As part of the process, in 
some instances, it froze embryos for test-tube fertilization.

So what?

Well, according to Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, "The church does not 
want children to come from factories. A child is the fruit of 
love, not high-tech." Accordingly, Anna Greziak, the chief 
doctor of Warsaw, ordered the clinic to stop any freezing of 
embryos. After all, she says, the method, condemned by the 
church, "interferes with the essence of humanity." The order has 
effectively stopped the work of the clinic. Thus, Roman Catholic 
doctrine becomes the law for childless Polish couples.

In another front in Poland, the Roman Catholic church is 
demanding that a state/church separation clause be dropped from 
the country's constitution. The church also wishes that an 
invocation to its god be included in the new constitution now 
being drafted.

Source: Associated Press, 3/28/95; Reuters, 3/27/95; Reuters, 
3/25/95