Gingrich’s Definition of Human Life Avoids Pro-Life Questions

News today that presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich believes that life begins at implantation does not come as a great surprise. Other pro-life denizens of Capitol Hill, such as elected officials Connie Mack and Orin Hatch have also stated that the embryo is not human until it’s in the womb.

Having recently covered this topic on when a human life begins, I’d like to probe deeper into the thoughts of Mr. Gingrich and extend to him an invitation to a cordial dialogue on this issue.

“I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life,” he added. “Because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.”

That last line is the key. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Speaker is guilty of the same error as our pro-choice opponents. He is defining away the human identity and status of the embryo in order to avoid wrestling with difficult questions of responsibility toward members of our species in their earliest and most vulnerable stage of existence. Yes, by acknowledging the human identity and status of the pre-implantation embryo we find ourselves immersed in a world of searing questions that directly challenge our infatuation with the unchecked exercise of raw political power, of personal predilection without accountability.

The Protester

The protester stood alone
On ground she felt should somehow be her own
It strangely wasn’t.

The authorities stood by
Oblivious to her cry
As the attacker drew ever near
His crime of violence to do.

Where could she run and hide
She tries
But there is nowhere else to go
She must remain.

In dark the knife won’t flash
But cuts as sure
And spills innocent blood upon the floor.

But just to die is not enough
She must be taken, ripped apart, limb by limb
Oh the callousness of him
Who does the deed.

But now its done
The property is clear
The protester is gone
Dismembered in a dumpster lying near.

Over and over this drama plays on
More and more of the innocent are gone
Silently swept away
50,000,000 souls who’ve never seen the light of day.

Can no one hear their cry
Can no one feel their pain
Each time we suck their life, or let some greedy soul
Each member of the crowd must pay the toll
Spectators of a deed we might not choose
But to be involved we can’t refuse.

Silently we say “Yes,” take her away
Or rightfully we say “No,” this cannot be
What will you choose, for choose you must
Will another die, or from the knife go free?

I haven’t gotten over this one issue — and never will.

So sorry to see that, apparently, your regard for human life is not preeminent, and the policies/positions that affect whether people live or die are not critical to you.

This is BAD!

Life begins when life begins. A new individual of ANY sexually-reproducing species comes into existence at fertilization, because that is when the full genetic complement of a new individual, distinct from both the male and female parents, comes into existence.

Implantation is the fictitious starting-point chosen by the pro-abortion movement—precisely for the purpose of muddying the issue.

I won’t get over it, because mass abortion is mass murder.

The legal fiction that any private citizen has the right to condemn another person to death, and to carry out that sentence, attacks the absolute foundation of ALL LAW. It is barbarism. It is a direct attack on the bare minimum of human civilization—the principle that no one has the authority to condemn, attack, and kill any innocent person.

You’d better get over your cavalier attitude about the emergence and acceptance of barbarity, protected by elaborate “legal” fictions.

I would note that “conception” as understood by the Fathers of the Church was thought of as the man’s “seed” being implanted in the “fertile soil” of the womb. The modern scientific understanding accurately considers the process as sperm from the father uniting with the mother’s egg, and the resulting zygote, which is more analogous to a seed, as sperm is analogous to pollen, implanting in the mother’s womb.

The Latin church has, though Papal encyclicals, resolved the ambiguity in applying patristic condemnations of abortion created by the improved understanding of the material process, by following the usage of secular medicine and equating conception with fertilization. The Holy Synods of some local Orthodox churches have done likewise.

This approach, in contrast to Gingrich’s stated position (which retains the patristic image of implanting in the “fertile soil” of the womb), has the drawback of making an absolute prohibition on abortion very difficult to justify. Such a prohibition dooms a woman with an ectopic pregnancy to death, or a least, to rushed emergency surgery when the doomed child (under this view) bursts her fallopian tube. (The child’s life having begun at fertilization, ending an ectopic pregnancy is abortion and homicide.)

I personally prefer the view that life begins at fertilization, from which it follows that all abortions are homicide. The question of abortion policy is then which are justifiable homicide. I believe I just gave an example which all persons of good will and sound moral reasoning will agree is an example of an abortion which is justifiable homicide. The debate among various nuances of pro-life positions comes down to “are there any others?”

That said, were the Holy Synod of Antioch (to which I am currently subject), or of a future united American Orthodox Church to decide that the other resolution — conception as understood by the Fathers and as used in Scripture means what we now call implantation — is correct, I would be obedient to my bishops.

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