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."
" From the moment of conception, the life of every human being is to be respected in an absolute way because man is the only creature on earth that God has "wished for himself" and the spiritual soul of each man is "immediately created" by God; his whole being bears the image of the Creator. Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, Who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being"
--The Gift of Life (Donum Vitae) No. 5 of introduction. Published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, February 22, 1987. http://www.usccb.org/prolife/tdocs/donumvitae.htm
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ABORTION AND THE “HARD CASES”: rape, incest, and life of the mother.
What about abortion in cases of rape or incest?
Abortion Q & A -- BY JOHN CARDINAL O'CONNOR, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK
July 1990 http://priestsforlife.org/magisterium/cardocqanda.html#qa13
Some evils are what we call intrinsic evils, that is evil in themselves, so that no circumstances can justify them. Direct abortion is such an evil. It simply can not be morally justified. This principle holds even in regard to rape or incest. An unborn baby is an innocent human being who has committed no crime, regardless of how conception came about. It is never morally right to destroy an innocent human being.
What About Rape? http://www.prolife.org.uk/about/keyabortion.htm
Abortion is often recommended in cases of rape. But abortion does not undo the rape; instead it compounds violence with violence. It is an indefensible response to a complex situation. Putting aside the injustice of an innocent child being killed for her father's crime, there is evidence that abortion only deepens the trauma of the rape victim as well as taking the innocent life of her child. A rape victim requires special emotional care regardless of whether or not she obtains an abortion. By recommending abortion as a quick and easy way to “lessen the impact”, a disservice is done to raped women.
By promoting abortion specifically in the case of rape one implicitly argues that the means of conception determines the value of a human life. This line of reasoning fails to acknowledge that, biologically speaking, there is no difference between a human being conceived by a loving couple and a human being conceived by rape. Are we to deem born children conceived by rape as having no right to life?
It is also worth noting that statistically speaking, violent rape is extraordinarily unlikely to result in pregnancy; moreover, women tend to love their babies even if they hate the father.
Priests for Life Q&A on Abortion
http://priestsforlife.org/questions.html
A key study on this topic is the book Victims and Victors: Speaking out about their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault, By David C. Reardon. In this book, read the testimonies of 192 women who reveal that most pregnant sexual assault victims don't want abortion, and those who do abort only suffer more. This is the most comprehensive study published on this theme. www.afterabortion.org
Dr. Theresa Burke also addresses this topic in her book Forbidden Grief, www.forbiddengrief.com. One example from that book is this testimony: "The rape was bad, but I could have gotten over it. The abortion is something I will never get over. No one realizes how much that event damaged my life. I hate my rapist, but I hate the abortionist too. I can’t believe I paid to be raped again. This will affect the rest of my life."
Please also see the following testimony from Jenni Speltz, who was conceived in rape: http://www.priestsforlife.org/testimony/jennispeltz.htm.
In many cases the best choice is adoption. It is important to note that there are hundreds of thousands of couples that want to adopt but have been unable to because so many children are never allowed to be born.
What about the life of the mother? (by Fr. Frank Pavone) http://priestsforlife.org/questions.html
Answer: There are two questions at issue here. One is medical (Is there ever need for an abortion to save the mother's life?) and the other is moral (Would an abortion in that case be justified?) The answer to both questions is no. There is no medical situation whose only solution is a direct abortion, as many doctors have testified. Morally speaking, furthermore, it is never right to directly kill an innocent person, even if good results are foreseen. We do not say that a baby's life is more important than the mother's. We do say that they are equal. You may never directly kill either one of them. If, in spite of the best medical efforts, one or both of them die, nothing morally wrong has been done, because an effort has been made to save life, but has failed. That is far different from killing.
Planned Parenthood demanded an immediate recount.
Yes.
"Pregnancy" was defined by the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology as beginning at the initial union of sperm and egg, i.e. fertilization, until 1965. It was after a series of interactions between the AMA, AACOG, the Population Council, and Planned Parenthood regarding birth control and the "population explosion" that the physician's groups chose to modify their definitions.
Following is a list of materials that document the change in terminology:
Dr. Mary Calderone, discussion, Mechanisms of Contraceptive Action," in Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices: Proceedings of the Conference, held April 30-May 1, 1962, New York City, ed. C. Tietze and S. Lewitt, published by Excerpta Medica Foundation, 110.
Sybil Meloy, "Pre-Implantation Fertility Control and the Abortion Law," Chicago- Kent Law Review, vol. 41 (1964): 183, 205-06. Planned Parenthood recognized in its amicus brief for Roe v. Wade that criminal abortion laws could be applied to the IUD because of its potential to prevent implantation. PPFA its physician group (APPP) Amicus brief on page 44 cited Cybil Meloy, and also said that prosecutors had not used state anti-abortion laws to outlaw the use of IUD's.
Abraham Stone, M.D., "Research in Contraception: A Review and Preview," presented at the Third International Conference of Planned Parenthood, Bombay, India Report of the Proceedings, November 24-29, 1952, no copyright, Family Planning Association of India, 101.
A Survey of Research on Reproduction Related to Birth and Population Control (as of January 1, 1963) US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, page 27.
Memo to Dr. Drill from Dr. Saunders, re: "Effects of Drugs on Mating in Rats," 12/9/54, Gregory Pincus Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; Abraham Stone, The Control of Fertility, Scientific American, April, 1954, vol. 190., no. 4, 31-33.
Bent Boving, "Implantation Mechanisms," in Mechanisms Concerned with Conception, ed. C. G. Hartman (New York: Pergamon Press, 1963), 386. Boving acknowledged (p. 321): "... the greatest pregnancy wastage, in fact, by far the highest death rate of the entire human life span, is during the week before and including the beginning of implantation, and the next greatest is in the week immediately following."
Proceedings of the Second International Conference, Intra-Uterine Contraception, held October 2-3, 1964, New York City, ed. Sheldon Segal, et al.., International Series, Excerpta Medica Foundation, No. 86, page 212.
ACOG Terminology Bulletin, Terms Used in Reference to the Fetus, Chicago, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, No. 1, September 1965.
Dr. Richard Sosnowski, head of the Southern Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists "The Pursuit of Excellence: Have We Apprehended and Comprehended It?" American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, vol. 150. No. 2 (September 15, 1984) 117.
So does Catholic theology teach that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception?
Wow, what a nutjob.
So you have sex, and before an embryo is implanted, it is a christian.
No, it says that nowhere. It just says a human is conceived when egg and sperm join. You're not a Christian until baptism.
God made us body and soul, when our body was made at conception were we given our soul.
Post 2 has the authoritative answer.
Thanks very much.
Here is what I was looking for:
"Early in the 13th century, Pope Innocent III stated that the soul enters the body of the fetus at the time of "quickening" - when the woman first feels movement of the fetus. After ensoulment, abortion was equated with murder; before that time, it was a less serious sin, because it terminated only potential human life, not human life.
"St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) also considered only the abortion of an "animated" fetus as murder.
Is the official teaching of the Catholic church now different?
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