The Pope has reiterated his plea that scientific progress be based on “ethical-moral principles.” The condemnations are sweeping.

According to Reuters, the Pope said: Practices like freezing embryos, suppression of embryos in multiple pregnancies, embryonic stem cell research, the prospect of human cloning and artificial insemination outside the body had “shattered the barriers meant to protect human dignity.” [Full Story]

All scientific endeavors are not created equal, however. Few people are eager to see human cloning, and few reputable scientists have any desire to try it. Yet embryonic stem cell research, as most scientists envision it, is done with cast-off embryos — nobody is stealing a life for the sake of science — and promises to improve and extend lives of millions of miserable suffers of the most debilitating human ills. Tell a sufferer of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s that this research represents an indignity.

As for test tube babies, perhaps the children born by the method over the past three decades, and their parents and brothers and sisters, should weigh in whether their creation represents an indignity.

If we’re to lump embryonic stem cell research, artificial insemination and human cloning into the same category of moral indignation, then apparently there are no lines and so we need to add everything else that might affect the creation of human life, from aphrodisiacs to Viagra, Caesareans to painkillers. And while you’re at it, toss in a host of techniques, medicines and procedures that science has developed to improve health, extend life or otherwise make the world slightly less miserable than it was a century ago.