Pope Says Embryos Have Rights from Conception

[Chicago1871]

Pope Says Embryos Have Rights from Conception (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060227/hl_nm/pope_embryos_dc)

Pope Benedict on Monday reaffirmed Catholic teaching that life begins at the moment of conception, saying embryos are "sacred and inviolable" even before they become implanted in a mother's uterus.

The Pope made his comments in an address to the Pontifical Academy for Life, which is hosting an international congress on scientific aspects and bioethical considerations of "The Human Embryo Before Implantation."

Speaking in Italian, the Pope said the Church had always proclaimed the "sacred and inviolable character of every human life, from its conception to its natural end."

He added: "This moral judgment is valid from the start of the life of an embryo, even before it is implanted in the maternal womb."

In natural conception, implantation of the embryo in the uterus usually begins to occur about a week after the egg is fertilised in the fallopian tube and is usually complete after about 14 days.

[DJPoopypants]

They have rights? Screw that. If socialogists have posited that you never get rights unless you fight for them - well, where does that leave embryos?

Personally, I have always admired the greeks who allowed for exposure - if you don't like your kids before they grow up - put 'em on the mountainside and let the chips fall where they may.

(Yeah, I wouldn't be here today after the greif I gave my parents)

But I do find it interesting that "conservatives" are all about embryo rights, but then argue personal responsibility and survival of the fittest in adults. Surely the kids should stop being welfare tots and earn their keep?

Baby potatos and tater tots have earned their place at the dinner table - why don't kids do the same?

[dfb547490]

But I do find it interesting that "conservatives" are all about embryo rights, but then argue personal responsibility and survival of the fittest in adults. Surely the kids should stop being welfare tots and earn their keep?

You do, I'm sure, understand the difference between not giving someone a government handout and killing them??

[Riz]

*le sigh*

So many battles, so many fronts, so little time.

[DJPoopypants]

You do, I'm sure, understand the difference between not giving someone a government handout and killing them??

What has an embyo done for me lately?

[dj43]

They have rights? Screw that.

You MUST have better stuff than this!!!

We scream on here about the number of dead in Iraq but we kill more babies in this country in a single year than died in Vietnam and Iraq to date combined.

Oh wait...we have had discussion like this in the past. Never mind.

Back to work.

[DJPoopypants]

You MUST have better stuff than this!!!

We scream on here about the number of dead in Iraq but we kill more babies in this country in a single year than died in Vietnam and Iraq to date combined.

Oh wait...we have had discussion like this in the past. Never mind.

Back to work.

I'll give them equal rights when a bunch of embryos march to DC, and the world is horrified when they are attacked with dogs and water cannons.

[Riz]

I see an embryo as a potential life, a potential baby if you will, not a life in and of itself. Lives in fact do have rights.

Potentials for life do not. See also: the sacred sperm arguments.

[Yankee_Blue]

I see an embryo as a potential life, a potential baby if you will, not a life in and of itself. Lives in fact do have rights.

Potentials for life do not. See also: the sacred sperm arguments.

Sperm is a potential life. An egg is a potential life. But not life. Conception yields an entity wholly separate from both parents. An entity that is at the very beginning stages of life.

[DJPoopypants]

A sperm, egg or embryo cannot survive, while a life can.

Which gets back to the greek idea of exposure. If a renounced kid abandoned on a mountainside can live, then it has proved it deserves life.

[Yankee_Blue]

A sperm, egg or embryo cannot survive, while a life can.

Which gets back to the greek idea of exposure. If a renounced kid abandoned on a mountainside can live, then it has proved it deserves life.

effectively raising the abortion age to, what, 10 years?

[DJPoopypants]

effectively raising the abortion age to, what, 10 years?

16-18.

[dj43]

I'll give them equal rights when a bunch of embryos march to DC, and the world is horrified when they are attacked with dogs and water cannons.
You must have better stuff than THIS!!!

[Riz]

Sperm is a potential life. An egg is a potential life. But not life. Conception yields an entity wholly separate from both parents. An entity that is at the very beginning stages of life.

Conception does not always end up in a successful implantation. Therefore yes, it is a POTENTIAL life.

It is only through implantation that the very beginning stages of life commence. In my opinion.

[Mel Brennan]

When those concerned about life pony up their comprehensive, ENACTED strategy for adopting all the babies lacking homes in this country, in the West, and on this earth, then, maybe, they might conditionally bring the credibility to the table on "life" issues they so desparately crave and perpetually lack.

Why do any of the RESULTS of women LIVING your pro-life policy lack homes AT ALL? Why? You know that, given you claimed commitment to life, there's no good reason at all. At least let us hear about how all the (mainly black and brown) kids in the USA are trying to be adopted by you folks, but how bureaucracy is in your way; let's see robust lists of children in your effort to account for all these "policy results"; let's see one - JUST ONE - plank of the platform of the political party you love so much talk about these "results"...

You've got nothing. You claim to love life, yet when it's produed, you've got nothing; you support murder by the state, and murder by the nation-state abroad.

No credibility whatsoever.

Until you have an ethical answer to this question, you're desire to control all women's uteruses fall on deaf ears in my case.

Pro SOME life. Let's just make it clear, and say it loud. Pro SOME life.

[Yankee_Blue]

When those concerned about life pony up their comprehensive, ENACTED strategy for adopting all the babies lacking homes in this country, in the West, and on this earth, then, maybe, they might conditionally bring the credibility to the table on "life" issues they so desparately crave and perpetually lack.


See my previous posts on volunteer work at a Crisis Pregnancy center where wife is employed. Course, killing em is much more effecient, right?


Why do any of the RESULTS of women LIVING your pro-life policy lack homes AT ALL? Why? You know that, given you claimed commitment to life, there's no good reason at all. At least let us hear about how all the (mainly black and brown) kids in the USA are trying to be adopted by you folks, but how bureaucracy is in your way; let's see robust lists of children in your effort to account for all these "policy results"; let's see one - JUST ONE - plank of the platform of the political party you love so much talk about these "results"...


See above and:
Which party would that be? I claim no allegiance.


You've got nothing. You claim to love life, yet when it's produed, you've got nothing; you support murder by the state, and murder by the nation-state abroad.


Bull. You make no distinction between innocence and guilt then you have a bigger problem than the one you are trying to foist upon others. You have failed miserably to pigeonhole all pro-lifers into GWB lovers. Nice try.


No credibility whatsoever.

Until you have an ethical answer to this question, you're desire to control all women's uteruses fall on deaf ears in my case.

No desire to control a fetus. Just protect a life that can't protect itself...

[Chicago1871]

An egg, sperm, or a fertilized egg have zero rights, nothing. In the two weeks it takes for a fertilized egg (post conception) to attach itself to the uterine wall - no rights. It isn't alive it is only cells; and there are more [skin] cells on the towel in my bathroom that hasn't been washed yet this week.

[Mel Brennan]

An egg, sperm, or a fertilized egg have zero rights, nothing. In the two weeks it takes for a fertilized egg (post conception) to attach itself to the uterine wall - no rights. It isn't alive it is only cells; and there are more [skin] cells on the towel in my bathroom that hasn't been washed yet this week.


You wash your towels? MURDERER. :)

See my previous posts on volunteer work at a Crisis Pregnancy center where wife is employed. Course, killing em is much more effecient, right?

Either life has inherent value; or we're picking and choosing; if we kill other life, then we're doing the latter. If it's about choice, I leave the choice to the woman who must endure both the change and the truth of being a mother. Her choice. Noone else's. Particularly if the RESULTS of choosing the way that pro-lifers would like MEANS, for many (disproportionately black and brown) children, a life without the specific love and care that comes from being part of a nuclear family. I am adopted. My wife and I are adopting. I can tell you, given what we've tracked in terms of what happened to those children, like me, who were part of the Philly Children's Aid Society's adoption efforts, who were NOT adopted...that life is hell. When pro-lifers lack a plan - not just an ability to produce a claim about working in Crisis pregnancy, but a plan as robust and as fleshed out as the media spin and lobbying taking place right now in D.C. and elsewhere - for the very existences of these RESULTS of women being demonstrative of such pro-life wishes, it's entirely appropriate to question exactly how committed the pro-life movement IS to these lives. I don't think the loss of life is appropriate at all; but I'm not going to tell ANY woman that she must bring any child she does not want, any child she does not feel ready to love and nurture, to term. Who the hell do folks think they are that they can demand of a woman's uterus and body this way, and then FAIL to provide an overwhelming, and well-worked, and robustly fleshed-out, safety net for ALL of those children? Hypocrisy. Maybe not you, or your wife, specifically, I don't know you or your wife. I do feel very comfortable in indicting all the major policy players and political manipulators that are easily Google-able on this issue. Including the Pope. Let him talk about An Era of Adoption; the Church's PLAN, worldwide, for adoption, and then, along with abandoning "just war" doctrine, he might bring credibility to the table in terms of talking about the value of "life."


Which party would that be? I claim no allegiance.

Okay; then I'm not talking about you. take what applies and ignore the rest.


Bull. You make no distinction between innocence and guilt then you have a bigger problem than the one you are trying to foist upon others. You have failed miserably to pigeonhole all pro-lifers into GWB lovers. Nice try.

yes, this is what I'm talking about; because a jury of peers makes a judgement - which is, a statistically significant percentage of the time WRONG - we can take that life; because the President has an agenda of any sort in the ME, we can take those lives...but don't limit the emergence of this life over here. That's picking and choosing (in the case of your quote, above, picking and choosing along the lines of the right to kill based on some arbitrary notion of "guilt" or "innocence"...picking and choosing among lives nonetheless)...again, if that's the case, why not leave that choice to the mother who must endure the change and who remains the rightful manager of her own uterus and body?

No desire to control a fetus. Just protect a life that can't protect itself...

Pro-life policy demands control of women's bodies towards birthing ends without planks for adoption, foster care, and while aligning, most people most of the time, with murderous policy within our death chambers and on foreign deserts abroad. It's pathological. I won't join these folks IN such pathology.

Life has inherent value, for me. A woman says to me, "I'm pregnant, what shoudl I do?" I'm gonna say "Keep the baby; raise the baby; love the baby."

I also say that about Iraqi babies, and Salvadoran babies, and Colombian babies, and Angolan babies and Chicago babies who are already here.

I also say that about those we've convicted in various judicial processes.

And I also say that about that selfsame woman in terms of her OWN BODY. That fetal life can do nothing but spring from HER LIFE. She MUST be in charge of the ENTIRETY of that process.

Interested in the life she's making choices about on LIFE'S OWN TERMS? Then DEMONSTRATE that in the ways in which you engage all the other life where the lines on the issue are far less contentious. A five-month or five-year old child lacking a home can't fight for themselves EITHER.

[Yankee_Blue]

...Either life has inherent value; or we're picking and choosing; if we kill other life, then we're doing the latter. If it's about choice, I leave the choice to the woman who must endure both the change and the truth of being a mother. Her choice. Noone else's. Particularly if the RESULTS of choosing the way that pro-lifers would like MEANS, for many (disproportionately black and brown) children, a life without the specific love and care that comes from being part of a nuclear family. I am adopted. My wife and I are adopting. I can tell you, given what we've tracked in terms of what happened to those children, like me, who were part of the Philly Children's Aid Society's adoption efforts, who were NOT adopted...that life is hell. When pro-lifers lack a plan - not just an ability to produce a claim about working in Crisis pregnancy, but a plan as robust and as fleshed out as the media spin and lobbying taking place right now in D.C. and elsewhere - for the very existences of these RESULTS of women being demonstrative of such pro-life wishes, it's entirely appropriate to question exactly how committed the pro-life movement IS to these lives. I don't think the loss of life is appropriate at all; but I'm not going to tell ANY woman that she must bring any child she does not want, any child she does not feel ready to love and nurture, to term. Who the hell do folks think they are that they can demand of a woman's uterus and body this way, and then FAIL to provide an overwhelming, and well-worked, and robustly fleshed-out, safety net for ALL of those children? Hypocrisy. Maybe not you, or your wife, specifically, I don't know you or your wife. I do feel very comfortable in indicting all the major policy players and political manipulators that are easily Google-able on this issue. Including the Pope. Let him talk about An Era of Adoption; the Church's PLAN, worldwide, for adoption, and then, along with abandoning "just war" doctrine, he might bring credibility to the table in terms of talking about the value of "life."


Look. I would never oppose any efforts to improve, and, ultimately, perfect, adoption. Really it boils down to this: Which right outweighs the other right? The right of the mother to choose or the right of the child to its life. If I am going to be wrong on the issue, I'll err on the side of the child. Not some arbitrary, ahem, right to choose....



...(in the case of your quote, above, picking and choosing along the lines of the right to kill based on some arbitrary notion of "guilt" or "innocence".....


Sorry. I don't share this view on "guilt" or "innocence" being "an arbitrary notion". That really doesn't compute. Unless you meant something else...

[DJPoopypants]

Hypothetically - if someone kidnapped a lady and surgically implanted an embryo based on Hillary Clinton's egg and a mixture of Hitler's/Noam Chomsky's/Saddam's/Ol Saudi Bastard's sperm - is an abortion in order?

Just wonderin'.