Posted on 12/04/2011 7:50:15 PM PST by Notwithstanding
The Gingrich campaign contacted me directly last night about the comments that he made to ABC News. The campaign sent me the following statement from Newt Gingrich. (Which is also on their website).
I am very glad that the Gingrich campaign was quick to respond to the fallout from the ABC News interview and that they came out with a strong pro-life statement which reaffirms the scientific fact that life begins at conception....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicvote.org ...
I’m afraid I consider it ‘dehumanizing’ to call an embryo-aged human ‘a potential human being’. Your mileage may vary, but a rational explanation for your beliefs will be assumed until shown otherwise. I just don’t agree that a several hundred cell embryo is not yet a human being.
There is a sort of conflating here, between the miscarried embryos and the embryos conceived in a petri dish. I don’t seek an argument with you, but I cannot accept an analogy which is fashioned upon a conflating such as that. Stem cells are not now derievd from miscarried embryos. As far as I know, there is zero ‘harvesting’ of miscarried embryos. ALL harvesting is being done upon in vitro fertilization derived embryos ... well, except for the cloning experiments underway.
Oh..I did not know St. Gianna’s story. Thank you for clarifying that.
There was an episode of the TV show “House” about this very issue. Did you see it?
No, it stops at the moment of death. You can't measure when a zygote won't implant until it is dead (cellular function has ceased). Zygotes are 'un-implanted' before they would implant (and are therefore alive) as well as after they are dead and you can't know when that happens. Declaring an un-implanted zygote as dead leaves the door open for killing pre-implanted zygotes by allowing them to be defined as dead simply because they are 'un-implanted'. That's the wrong path to be on, IMO.
"I am also pointing out that your heart can stop beating and you be declared dead, but that the cells in some of your organs are still viable and living and can be transplanted to others."
Unfortunately not applicable to a zygote. It's either alive or it's dead and that is based on the internal cellular function within the zygote, not on whether it has implanted or not. You already admitted that a pre-implanted zygote is alive. Well, a pre-implanted zygote is 'un-implanted' and would be considered dead using your definition.
You certainly seem determined to sacrifice zygotes that you define as dead. What's up with that?
Gingrich's plan also requires State approval of the insurance company. I don't believe there is a state in the union that does not regulate who can sell insurance in it.
If you're going to take your car to the mechanic, then you should pay the guy who fixes your car. You should not have a law protecting you that allows you to stiff the mechanic. Nor should the taxpayer have to pay to fix your car. YOU should have to pay to fix your own car.
I know this is a radical position but why not just let the mechanic say no. In the case of health care we provide for county hospitals let those who don't have insurance go there. Why mandate that I have to buy a product.
Xz I know you really like Newt right now. I really like Perry. The only way that scientists will get unimplanted zygotes is either in a lab, by creating them, or from fertility clinics. Once that door is opened eugenics will follow.
Yes, we are to afford the rights of a person to the embryo from the moment of its conception (fertilization). (CCC #2270 & #2274).
But my position is that the CCC does not address or imply what that means with respect to the property and inheritance rights (for example) of a frozen microscopic embryo in a lab.
Who is the unused (discarded) frozen embryo’s father - the sperm donor or the man who was married to the woman who had the embryos created?
If his parents die, how long should a frozen embryo’s inheritance be held - indefinitely? 5 years? 30 years? Should the embryo’s already born sibling be deprived of that portion of the inheritance because the frozen embryo might someday be born?
If such a frozen embryo was created in a Mexican lab and then transferred to the USA would Catholic-compliant pro-life laws address whether that embryo is a citizen of Mexico or the USA?
If such a frozen embryo is in the lab for 5 years before being transplanted and eventually born, would a Catholic law require that person to be able to vote 13 years after birth because otherwise it would be deprived of the human rights it gained at fertilization?
Is such an embryo eligible for welfare benefits?
Does such a person have a right to develop into a baby? How would a catholic law achieve that, given the fact that the Church actually flatly and universally condemns transplanting such embryos into women in all cases - even for the purely selfless reason to offer the embryo a chance to have a normal life?
We have some guidelines, but the Church leaves these questions without definitive answers.
These issues are not black and white.
Where are you getting them from?
If you're getting them from fertility clinics you are ending the potential development of that life. Why not just take the cells of aborted babies?
I have not seen it. I will search for it.
We have had photos of St. Gianna in our prayer books and bibles and on our fridge since about 2002.
I had a friend who lost his wife because she did the same thing. The child was born healthy, and mom died shortly after of the cancer.
Cranky Old Dr. House keeps trying to convince a woman to abort because the “fetus isn’t going to live through the operation”. The woman refuses and demands that they do the operation anyway. Then House operates on the woman and the baby reaches out and grabs his finger!
After that, he calls the little person a “BABY” instead of a “Fetus”.
That said, the position of people like Newt echoes that of overt pro-aborts, who always say, "Laws against abortion won't stop all abortions so why have those laws?"
A law against something - with corresponding legal penalties for doing that thing - stop more instances of that thing than would be stopped if the law was not in place at all.
That is the core cause-and effect premise, and it applies to protecting pre-born babies from their conception forward instead of taking a cheap way out and reserving protection for any later / post-conception stage.
Having laws that protect pre-born babies starting from conception forward will save a lot of them.
Regarding the implementation of that protection, there are many ways to get that rolling.
Key amongst them is banning the sale, distribution, and possession of chemical compounds which abort a newly-conceived pre-born baby at any point from that baby's conception forward.
CCC 2270: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
If we read 2270 carefully, we see that at conception “from the first moments of its existence a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person”. Thus an embryo is defined as a human being, and that embryonic human being must be treated as if it was a human person.
It is very important to note that the CCC stops short of declaring that an embryo IS a person. Rather the CCC states that we must treat the embryo AS IF IT IS a person. There is a reason that the CCC does not simply state plainly that “the embryo is a person”. The Church does NOT teach that the embryo IS a person. But she instructs us to treat the embryo as if it was a person. The Church is conceding that she is not certain whether an embryo is a person, while at the same time the Church is insisting that we err on the side of life. This is actually a beautiful thing - the Church underscores the very mystery at work in God’s gift of human life. The Church does not know for certain how it all works, but it is so awesome that we must afford it absolute respect even at the embryo stage.
Not so. A zygote is on a timetable. It has a window in which to implant or it won’t survive. Once past that prime turf, it’s not going to happen. That explains the many fertilized eggs that are sloughed off
That isn’t the point. The point is that they naturally exist.
The other point is that Gingrich said he was only in favor of embryonic stem cells that were from placental blood or other non-living sources.
He affirmed that life begins at conception, and he said that questions get raised by the difference between implantation and non-implantation.
N00b, your effort to mischaracterize my post to you is duly noted. The vagueness arises in your lack of specifics on how to protect the little ones from conception onward. But I suspect you are also a hit and run agitprop who will disappear after the elections. Calls to ‘purity or nothing’ are a set-up to suppress momentum and isolate conservatives from practical actions, which of course result in the progressive dead-souls carrying the day, just as I suspect you plan. When we’re a year beyond your sign-up date of 11/24/2011, we’ll discuss your creds again.
This is the problem with discussing ideas. All kinds of assumptions take place that are not so.
I have not once retracted my belief that life begins at conception. But, because I've discussed implantation versus non-implantation, my position statement gets ignored.
Your comments are being mischaracterized. Perhaps this is due to a misunderstanding between organ and organism. And embryo is an organism. An embryonic stem cell is a subunit, an organ if you like, of the organism. And in fact the first organ the organism makes for survival is not even part of the support organs once the being leaves the water world of the amnioltic sac. It’s sort of like having an appendix removed ... having an organ removed from the organism, but int he case of birth, the orga is left behind by the organism when the umbilicus is severed.
Declaring an un-implanted zygote as dead leaves the door open for killing pre-implanted zygotes by allowing them to be defined as dead simply because they are ‘un-implanted’. That’s the wrong path to be on, IMO.
You already admitted that a pre-implanted zygote is alive. Well, a pre-implanted zygote is ‘un-implanted’ and would be considered dead using your definition.
You certainly seem determined to sacrifice zygotes that you define as dead. What’s up with that?
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