In 1992 the Waldensian Executive Board appointed a Working Group (changed to “Committee” in 2000), “on ethical issues raised by science”, made up of theologians and experts on various scientific subjects. The aim of the committee was not to prepare resolutions to be pedagogically circulated in the churches, but to allow qualified persons to discuss important factual issues in the light of their own experience and professional activities,and thus be able to suggest a comprehensive vision and assess the most suitable answers.

Having this outlook, the church has never claimed to be in possession of unquestionable doctrinal truths to be proclaimed or taught, but prefers to see itself as a place where such issues can be debated, where people who are mature enough, after giving due consideration to such problems, are able to identify the most acceptable solutions. The chosen method has therefore produced a document which has a distinct character, a character which could be defined as Protestant, at least in the sense that it legitimately comes from a Protestant ambient and from working methods which correspond to ecclesiastical principles peculiar to Protestant churches. The Christian way of looking at bioetical issues comes inductively from the deferential research of the contingent facts, inspired by principles, rather than from a repetition of rules or statements which need to be adjusted to the reality of the said situation.