Gingrich: Life Doesn't Begin at Conception Because That Would 'Open Up ... Very Difficult Questions'

In an interview with ABC News on Friday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he believes that human life does not begin at conception but at "implantation and successful implantation" because if you say life begins at conception "you're going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions."

Gingrich also said that his "friends" who take "ideological positions" that human life does begin at conception "don't then follow through on the logic of" that postion.

Gingrich's statement was criticized by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who like Gingrich is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and by commentaries posted on pro-life websites.

Gingrich made his statement in an interview with ABC News's Jake Tapper in West Des Moines, Iowa.

"Abortion is a big issue here in Iowa among conservative Republican voters and Rick Santorum has said you are inconsistent," Tapper told Gingrich. "The big argument here is that you have supported in the past embryonic stem cell research and you made a comment about how these fertilized eggs, these embryos are not yet 'pre-human' because they have not been implanted. This has upset conservatives in this state who worry you don’t see these fertilized eggs as human life. When do you think human life begins?"

Gingrich responded: "Well, I think the question of being implanted is a very big question. My friends who have ideological positions that sound good don't then follow through the logic of: 'So how many additional potential lives are they talking about? What are they going to do as a practical matter to make this real?

"I think," Gingrich continued, "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, because otherwise you're going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult quesitons."

"In addition," said Gingrich, "I would say that I've never been for embryonic stem cell research per se. I have been for, there are a lot of different ways to get embryonic stem cells. I think if you can get it in ways that do not involve the loss of a life that's a perfectly legitimate avenue of approach.

"What I reject," Gingrich told Tapper, "is the idea that we're going to take one life for the purpose of doing research for other purposes and I think that crosses a threshold of de-humanizing us that's very, very dangerous."

Wesley J. Smith, who authors a blog about bioethics on the website of First Things, posted an entry on Saturday that was sharply critical of Gingrich's statements to Tapper.

Smith pointed to an embryology textbook he had quoted in his own book, Consumer's Guid to a Brave New World.

"If we want to learn the unvarnished scientific truth about whether an early embryo--wherever situated--is really a form of human life, we need only turn to apolitical medical and embryology textbooks," Smith wrote.

"For example," wrote Smith, "the authors of The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (6th Ed.) assert: 'Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte is fertilized by a sperm...' The fertilized egg is known as a zygote, which 'is the beginning of a new human being ...' More to the point, the authors write: 'Human development begins at fertilization' with the joining of the egg and sperm, which 'form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized ... cell marks the beginning of each of us a unique individual.'"

Rep. Bachmann put out a statement on Friday, expressing disagreement with what Gingrich had told ABC News.

“Newt Gingrich stated today that life begins at implantation not at conception," said Bachmann. "But those who are truly involved in the life issue know that life begins at conception. Additionally, the former speaker’s description of the life issue as 'practical' is a rejection of the most sacred principle that each and every life has value, a principle recognized by our founders in the Declaration of Independence of the most basic right with which every human is endowed. This along with his inconsistent record on life is just one more indication that Newt is not dedicated to protecting the lives of the unborn and doesn’t share the most basic of conservative principles."

Whether you really are an MD, or you just signed up to play one on FR, you're dishonest.

I don’t think the “State” and certainly the POTUS is qualified to decide matters of birth control; abortion

Birth control, or contraception, prevents conception, by definition. Methods that destroy the already-created human person are not contraception, they are chemical weapons of warfare against the weakest and most helpless among us.

The President of the United States, and every officer of government in this country, at every level, in every branch, as per the requirement of Article Six, Section Three, have sworn before God and their fellow citizens to support the Constitution, which explicitly and imperatively requires the equal protection of every person within their jurisdictions.

It is not until around 7 to up to 16 days later, around the same time that implantation occurs, that the father’s genetic code is fully passed to the blastocyst.

Life is a continuum. It reproduces after its kind. Always has, and always will, while this creation lasts. From fertilization, or biological inception, or creation, the genetic code is there, permanently joined with the DNA of the mother into a new, unique individual. This is self-evident, regardless of any intellectual excuses you desire to find to obtain a license to kill. If it wasn't, it could never manifest itself.

There are other deceptions in your post, which I may address later in the day as I have the opportunity or the inclination.

Whether you really are an MD, or you just signed up to play one on FR, you're dishonest.

Where did I ever claim to be an MD as in a medical doctor? FYI, the MD in my screen name refers to originally being from MD as in Maryland and now living in PA as in Pennsylvania. I am not being dishonest, you are just reading into things that just aren’t there and have never been claimed.

So I gather then you are not against condoms, vasectomies, tubal ligation or other forms of birth control but are you just against birth control pills? Do birth control pills really destroy an already created human person? I guess that all depends on your understanding of human biology and how the pill works.

The pill works primarily by stopping the woman’s body from releasing an egg from the ovary in the first place. The hormonal changes from taking the pill also make it difficult for the sperm to find an egg by changing the cervical mucus – if no egg is released or the sperm can’t find the egg, then no fertilization occurs ever occurs. Therefore the pill prevents conception therefore making it a contraceptive.

The hormones in some birth control pills also prevent pregnancy by making the lining of the womb inhospitable for implantation, so one may argue that if the fertilized egg isn’t able to implant and if the fertilized egg, not having been fully integrated with the father’s DNA from second one to around 7 days after fertilization, is really distinct human being at that point, then one might say the pill then is a “chemical warfare weapon”. But consider all the other factors that routinely and naturally prevent a fertilized egg from implanting; do you consider all of them abortions or miscarriages or murder too? Do you really want every woman who suffers an early miscarriage to be subject to a possible criminal investigation?

So you would have the POTUS ban all or just some forms of birth control as illegal punishable by law? Tell me what forms of birth control you would have be made a federal offence and under what circumstances? Do you also extend the imperative of equal protection of every “person” within their jurisdictions” to the children of illegals or convicts on death row – after all, are they not “people” too?

There are other deceptions in your post, which I may address later in the day as I have the opportunity or the inclination.

Where did I ever say it was OK to kill a fetus, an unborn baby in the womb? Where in my post was I being deceptive? The biological truth is that while cell division takes place shortly after fertilization, the unique individual and a viable pregnancy is not realized until the father’s DNA is fully transferred and the zygote is implanted in the mother’s uterus. Fanciful ideas about “God knowing us” long before we were even conceived long before our parents even met are all fine and good if that’s what you believe but that is not supported by science.

I am absolutely pro-life and opposed to abortion for anything other than saving the life of the mother in extreme cases. I do not however equate all forms of birth control as murder as some here do. The problem with the position of equating birth control methods with abortion is that it makes it very difficult for those of us who are pro-life based on science and the Constitutional rights of the individual rather than unscientific and purely religious beliefs to make a case to protect the life of babies growing in the womb. If you criminalize the pill and all other forms of contraception and make responsible doctors, pharmacists and their patients, criminals for trying to prevent conception, you may actually and unintentionally increase the number of abortions of truly viable fetuses, i.e. human babies.

I am not pardoning Neut here, as he was incredibly stupid to even approach this topic in a hostile venue,

BUT, what he is talking about is the fact that many fertilized eggs never implant themselves and thus never become viable foetus. Further, many implanted fertilized eggs spontaneously abort.

Are then these "unsuccessful" fertilized eggs, as Neut calls them, not "living humans?" I would say that they are. Others, just as anti-abortion as I, would opine that they are not.

Why let ourselves be led into this scientific-theological-legal thicket? Neut is anti-abortion; Anti-public funding of abortion; Anti-stem cell research using material from aborted or artificially created foetus ... and that is enough for me to consider voting for him, at least on that issue.

However, if some snivelling Left-Wing MSM homo-marriage advocate attempts to lead him down the garden path, he ought to be smart enough to recognize the ploy for what it is and "Trump" his interrogator. The SOBs need a very firm slap up the side of the head.

Folks, as we already know, by letting the MSM lead the Republican Primaries, we are being sidetracked.

Camel's nose under the tent.

Too complex philosophically to go into details, but making exceptions AGAINST life for 'convenience' always ends up with some people having absolute power of life and death over others, without regard to anything but the deciders' whim and convenience.

Better to "abort" the rot early by not allowing the toehold.

Try looking up the market in body parts of aborted babies; and look at the shutting down of that embryonic stem cell company that California had given so much money to.

The lie (much like global warming) was that "the science is settled, only the Luddites oppose this on [allegedly specious] 'religious, superstitious' grounds, but *we* the enlightened know better, and unless you want us to look down our noses at you superciliously, you'll show your open-mindedness by accepting everything we tell you to believe at face value"...

wagglebee, jeremiah: we've got a live one here.

Cheers!

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