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Posted on 02/25/2006 7:02:18 PM PST by cpforlife.org
Human Embryo Is a Child, Says Bishop Sgreccia
Promotes Bioethics Congress of Pontifical Academy for Life
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 24, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The embryo, even if it is not being nurtured in a maternal uterus, is a child, said the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Bishop Elio Sgreccia said this in a press conference regarding the upcoming congress "The Human Embryo Prior to Implantation: Scientific Aspects and Bioethical Considerations," organized by the Pontifical organization in the Vatican on Feb. 27-28.
"In any case, the embryo is a child: a boy or a girl, that has a special relationship with his parents and, for those who are believers, also has a special relationship with God," said Bishop Sgreccia in the Vatican press office.
The meeting brings together in the New Hall of the Synod 350 experts, among whom are scientists, doctors, researchers, theologians and bioethicists.
The human embryo maintains its status as a child, clarified Bishop Sgreccia, even when it is manipulated or destroyed, thus becoming a "crucial" question "both for anthropology as well as ethics."
The bishop, who was accompanied by scientists, explained that the congress will also pose the question: "Does the position that the Catholic Church has assumed have scientific arguments and, therefore, from the ethical point of view, can it be defended today?"
"We believe we have sufficient and valid arguments and we want to propose them," he said.
An individual
Professor Adriano Bompiani, gynecologist and director of the International Scientific Institute of Rome's Sacred Heart Catholic University, explained that knowledge of the phases of development of the embryo enables one to offer an ethical response to what happens in the maternal womb.
In the first embryonic cells biology attests the existence of an activity, of individuality, to the point that it goes so far as to propose the definition of a statute for the embryo even before its implantation in the uterus, protecting it from manipulations, especially from all kinds of destructive experimentation, explained the scientist.
Professor Kevin Fitzgerald, associate professor of Genetics at the Oncological Department of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., added that, implicitly, the congress poses another question: "Can we legitimately prevent a disease by selecting out those individuals who have the genetic basis for the disease?"
"This question echoes back to the eugenics movements of a century ago when we faced this same general idea," he replied.
He continued: "The practice of prenatal screening establishes the principle that parents may choose the qualities of their children, and choose them on the basis of genetic knowledge.
"This new principle, in conjunction with the cultural norm just mentioned, may already be shifting parental and societal attitudes toward prospective children: from simple acceptance to judgment and control, from seeing a child as an unconditionally welcome gift to seeing him as a conditionally acceptable product."
Which she has no control over so it's not abortion or murder. She only gets her period if the egg doesn't implant and if it doesn't implant, it's not going to survive anyway. Learn some biology.
AMA Votes Against Abortion Disclosure http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?
The Other Abortion Pill
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?art_id=918
What's an "unfertilized embryo "?
The pope's ruling was based on the facts of biology as know at the time. Pro-choice doctrine seems still to be holding to 13th Century biology.
How many abortions would happen if those having them would lose ten years of their life for each abortion? I kind of think they would stop most abortions them. I just have that feeling.
(I'm Christian, but not Catholic.I'll leave ensoulment to G_d. Thank Him, He's got more wisdom than I. But - ?in that wisdom? - He has given me the chance to study embryology and to use the knowledge from gained from others. And He gave me the belief that I can't discriminate among the His images.)
Yes, neither "fertilization" nor "conception" were visualized until recently. In fact, I've always used them interchangeably as synonyms, and that's the way they were used in the pregnancy books I read in the early '70's.
Now, partly because of distructive research on extracorporeal embryos, we understand that there is a gap in time in vivo - and a possible greater disconnect in the lab - between fertilization/conception and implantation.
But, the embryo is initiated at the joining of the sperm and the oocyte. From penetration of the zona pellucida, in fact, there is polarization that seems to persist in the normal course of events unless the cells of the embryo are separated from one another.
I think it was Martin Gardner wrote about an analogy that I like: that science could be compared to the application of better and better cameras. Just because I can get a sharper image or take a video of the event (or even interfere with the help of cameras and other technology) doesn't change the nature of the event itself.
What does modern science conclude about when human life begins? (Excerpts)
By Dr. John Ankerberg and John Weldon
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/apologetics/AP0805W3.htm
The complete article is available in print friendly PDF format at: http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/apologetics/AP3W0805.pdf
The scientific authorities on when life begins are biologists. But these are often the last people consulted in seeking an answer to the question. What modern science has concluded is crystal clear: Human life begins at conception. This is a matter of scientific fact, not philosophy, speculation, opinion, conjecture, or theory. Today, the evidence that human life begins at conception is a fact so well documented that no intellectually honest and informed scientist or physician can deny it.
In 1973, the Supreme Court concluded in its Roe v. Wade decision that it did not have to decide the "difficult question" of when life begins. Why? In essence, they said, "It is impossible to say when human life begins." The Court misled the public then, and others continue to mislead the public today.
Anyone familiar with recent Supreme Court history knows that two years before Roe V. Wade, in October 1971, a group of 220 distinguished physicians, scientists, and professors submitted an amicus curiae brief (advice to a court on some legal matter) to the Supreme Court. They showed the Court how modern science had already established that human life is a continuum and that the unborn child from the moment of conception on is a person and must be considered a person, like its mother. The brief set as its task "to show how clearly and conclusively modern science—embryology, fetology, genetics, perinatology, all of biology—establishes the humanity of the unborn child." For example,
In its seventh week, [the pre-born child] bears the familiar external features and all the internal organs of the adult.... The brain in configuration is already like the adult brain and sends out impulses that coordinate the function of other organs…. The heart beats sturdily. The stomach produces digestive juices. The liver manufactures blood cells and the kidneys begin to function by extracting uric acid from the child’s blood.... The muscles of the arms and body can already be set in motion. After the eighth week… everything is already present that will be found in the full term baby.
This brief proved beyond any doubt scientifically that human life begins at conception and that "the unborn is a person within the meaning of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments."
Thus, even though the Supreme Court had been properly informed as to the scientific evidence, they still chose to argue that the evidence was insufficient to show the pre-born child was fully human. In essence, their decision merely reflected social engineering and opinion, not scientific fact. Even during the growing abortion debate in 1970, the editors of the scientific journal California Medicine noted the "curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death."
In 1981, the United States Congress conducted hearings to answer the question, "When does human life begin?" A group of internationally known scientists appeared before a Senate judiciary subcommittee.
The U.S. Congress was told by Harvard University Medical School’s Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, "In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception...."
Dr. Watson A. Bowes, Jr., of the University of Colorado Medical School, testified that "the beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political or economic goals."
Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School noted: "The standard medical texts have long taught that human life begins at conception."
He added: "I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty... is not a human being. This is human life at every stage albeit incomplete until late adolescence."
Dr. McCarthy De Mere, who is a practicing physician as well as a law professor at the University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning [of] personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."
World-famous geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune, professor of fundamental genetics at the University of Descarte, Paris, France, declared, "each individual has a very unique beginning, the moment of its conception."
Dr. Lejeune also emphasized: "The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence."
The chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, Professor Hymie Gordon, testified, "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."
He further emphasized: "now we can say, unequivocally, that the question of when life begins… is an established scientific fact…. It is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception."
This Senate report concluded:
Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.
In 1981, only a single scientist disagreed with the majority’s conclusion, and he did so on philosophical rather than scientific grounds. In fact, abortion advocates, although invited to do so, failed to produce even one expert witness who would specifically testify that life begins at any other point than conception.
Again, let us stress that this is not a matter of religion, it is solely a matter of science. Scientists of every religious view and no religious view—agnostic, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, Christian, Hindu, etc.—all agree that life begins at conception. This explains why, for example, the International Code of Medical Ethics asserts: "A doctor must always bear in mind the importance of preserving human life from the time of conception until death."
This is also why the Declaration of Geneva holds physicians to the following: "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity." These statements can be found in the World Medical Association Bulletin for April 1949 (vol.1, p. 22) and January 1950 (vol. 2, p. 5). In 1970, the World Medical Association again reaffirmed the Declaration of Geneva.
What difference does it make that human life begins at conception? The difference is this: If human life begins at conception, then abortion is the killing of a human life.
To deny this fact is scientifically impossible.
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While I do not disagree with the discussion of the wrongness of abortion in the case of rape or incest, I wonder about some situations in which the mother will almost certainly die if she continues the pregnancy.
What is the Catholic belief on what to do in case of ectopic pregnancies? Unfortunately we have no way to transplant the fetus from the extra-uterine site to the uterus, and if the baby is allowed to continue growing in the tube it will certainly lead to the death of both mother and child. The choice is to either sacrifice one to save the other, or to allow both to die.
I do not mean to offend, but as I am not Catholic I don't know what the belief is. I have heard pro-life people go both ways on the issue of ectopic pregnancies.
BTTT!
She only gets her period if the egg is not fertilized or if the early embryo doesn't implant and if it doesn't implant, it's not going to survive anyway. Learn some biology.
Eggs do not implant!
I appologize if I have offended anyone here (I know that I have).
Please keep in mind that not all agree about this issue.
I am Catholic, and this is a very tough issue for me. There seems to be a loophole that goes something like this:
1. Human life begins at contraception
2. According to the Church, an embryo onwards is a human life and deserves protection from the law. Conversely, the fetus is therefore responsible under the law.
3. Defending your life by taking another is justifiable.
4. If an embryo or fetus causes the mother grave injury, the mother has a moral pass and can defend herself with an abortion.
I think the way the Church gets around this is through the antepartem diagnosis clause.
Great question. I refer you to post 4, esp. the last para. Please pay close attention to the last 2 lines.
#49 is all science and no religion.
I'd like you're take on it if you would like.
I know that only fertilized eggs or embryos implant. I merely copied and pasted the comment for the other poster without making that correction. I guess I should have. It was late.
It is also important to note that ectopic pregnancy is not an "abortion" issue. Removal of the part of the tube that contains the baby is not, as far as medical procedures go, an abortion.
Morally, the difference between abortion and the loss of a child implanted ectopically is that, when the doctor removes the part of the fallopian tube that contains the baby, he does not directly harm him or her. The child, sadly, dies in this process, but the death is not intentional. In an abortion, a baby is directly, bodily attacked.
Well and truly presented, Brother! You regaled my soul with the truth, once again.
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