The Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR)
South Korea, being both an ESCR "pioneer" and a multireligious country, provides a unique opportunity to observe how religious traditions face this crucial issue for our times. This article does just that: Religious Groups Divided Over Hwang’s Research.

Here's a brief summary:

Catholics, Protestants and Confucians chose to denounce Hwang’s research, while Buddhism, the nation’s biggest religion*, is carrying out a lonesome campaign for what it calls a ``life-saving’’ science.

This is what is behind the "lonesome campaign" of the followers of the Enlightened One:

Buddhist organizations seem to deny a definite dividing line between living and nonliving existence, thus justifying stem cell research as long as the technique contributes to humanity.

[This statement goes far in explaining why Buddhism has been embraced by many Westerners living under the "Dictatorship of relativism".]

Here is the Catholic position:

Out of the religions, the Korean Catholic Church is the most adamant and unflinching on this controversial issue. This church’s stance follows a series of directives prepared by the Vatican, which has kept a careful eye on the development of cloning technology....

With the guidance of the Vatican, Korean Catholics have stood firmly against Hwang’s embryonic stem cell research, a gap which Hwang attempted to bridge with a visit in June to the Rev. Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, archbishop of Seoul. The church, however, has not changed its stance. On Sunday, Cheong reaffirmed the church’s position that ``research should be on the adult stem cell, not embryonic stem cell’’ at a mass held at Myeong Dong Catholic Cathedral.

The Rev. Lemigio Lee Dong-ik, who is in charge of the church’s perspective on biological issues, recently even demanded that the government stop financial support for Hwang’s research.

To further their cause, the Church’s Seoul Archdiocese in October announced that it would hand out 10 billion won ($10 million) to prop up adult stem cell research.

Protestants in Korea, as elsewhere, are divided among between conservative and liberal denominations:

Protestants do not have a unified organization or policymaking process, which makes impossible for them to have a unanimous, collective voice like the Catholics. However, its major blocks have been gradually tilting against Hwang’s research.

The Christian Council of Korea, comprising 61 divisions and 20 related organizations, clarified its objection in October, settling controversies within the conservative umbrella body. The council’s head Choi Sung-kyu said, ``they (researchers) end up scrapping or killing embryos in the process of the research, which appears to be murder.’’ The council suggested that the research be centered on the adult stem cell.

On the other hand, the National Council of Churches in Korea, better known as KNCC, a progressive Christian umbrella group, remains cautious on the issue, but is more supportive of Hwang’s research than other conservative Protestants. In July, the body announced it ``credits to Hwang’s team with the sublime intention to solve incurable diseases.’’ However, it warned that the research should be stopped if any ``impure’’ motives were to be found.

Confucianists are a welcome ally in the struggle for human dignity:

Choi Gun-duk, head of Sung Kyun Kwan, the headquarters of Korean Confucianism, said in a meeting in June that embryonic stem cell research goes against Confucian ethics. ``I oppose Hwang’s research using the human embryo, which breaks natural law,’’ Choi said at that time.

Since then, Confucian groups have not yet issued any official statement on the subject. An official at the headquarters said that following Choi’s remarks, supporters of Hwang flooded the groups’ Web sites with messages of protest.

Choi, however, clarified the traditional religion’s opposition in a telephone interview with The Korea Times. ``They should pursue their goal with adult stem cells, not with embryonic stem cells,’’ he said. ``Unchecked, the research could progress like a riderless horse,’’ Choi said.

* I dispute this claim that Buddhism is the county's biggest religion. South Korea's religious statistics are notoriously unreliable, as evidenced by the Adherents.com - Religion by Location page on the country. Regarding Buddhism, a fascinating paper entitled LOOKING FOR GOD IN THE STREETS OF SEOUL: THE RESURGENCE OF RELIGION IN 20TH CENTURY KOREA has this to say:

[A] substantial percentage of people who tell Gallup or their government that they are Buddhists rarely if ever engage in organized Buddhist religious activity. For example, more than half of those who called themselves Buddhist confessed to Gallup pollsters that they had never read any Buddhist sutras. Moreover, almost one out of every four self-proclaimed Buddhists admitted that they had not attended any Buddhist rituals in at least a year. And one out of three Buddhists told Gallup that they never prayed to Buddhas or Boddhisatvas.

I regularly collect religious data from my students at the beginning of each semester and rarely find more than one student in a class of 20 who claims to be a Buddhist.