The theme that you chose for this assembly 'Identity and Status of the Human Embryo' with the approach of the 10th anniversary of the Instruction Donum vitae, published on 22 February 1987, is also in line with your commitment and today has a particular cultural and political relevance. In fact, it is first of all a question of reaffirming that 'the human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human to life' (Donum vitae, I, 1).