Nanci Pelosi on St. Augustine, human life begins at three months?

[Filippo_Bruno]

You are right about girls and the development of the ova. But a new human being does not begin until an egg and a sperm unite to form a biologically and genetically distinct new individual of the human species.

Oh, ova are definitely genetically distinct from their mother. When they are formed in meiosis they are all unique combinations of their grandparents’ DNA present in the mother.

I think without this process during gamete formation, we would all be clones? I am not a geneticist, so I can’t speak with authority.

 

[JimG]

Oh, ova are definitely genetically distinct from their mother. When they are formed in meiosis they are all unique combinations of their grandparents’ DNA present in the mother.

I think without this process during gamete formation, we would all be clones? I am not a geneticist, so I can’t speak with authority.

Yes, but until the ova are joined with a sperm cell, they do not have a full complement of DNA needed for a distinct human individual. Until that point they are specialized cells, not new human beings. An ovum by itself, (absent divine intervention), will not begin embryogenesis.

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

Yes, but until the ova are joined with a sperm cell, they do not have a full complement of DNA needed for a distinct human individual. Until that point they are specialized cells, not new human beings. An ovum by itself, (absent divine intervention), will not begin embryogenesis.

On the contrary, they do occasionally begin a form of embryogenesis – they’re called teratomas at that point and are health threats to their mother.

In any case it seems to me to be a slippery slope to base respect for human life based on something like ploidy – what could follow next? Sufferers of trisomy defects like Down syndrome, or missing chromosomes like Turner syndrome, are no longer human?

 

[JimG]

Teratomas are tumors arising in germ cells. They are not new and distinct human beings. It’s not a slippery slope to observe that every distinct individual of the human being has a beginning. and that beginning is at fertilization of the ovum by the sperm.

An ovum is not a new human being. A sperm is not a new human being. A new human being comes into existence at conception. Human beings with genetic defects such as Down syndrome are still distinct human beings. One doesn’t look at a Down syndrome baby and not see a human being.

Neither does one measure one’s beginning as a new individual of the human species from the time that the unfertilized ovum first originated in the ovary of a woman, nor from the date that a particular sperm was produced in the testes of a man. Those are specialized body cells. But at conception a new and genetically distinct human being has its beginning.

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

… and that beginning is at fertilization of the ovum by the sperm.

An ovum is not a new human being. A sperm is not a new human being. A new human being comes into existence at conception…

… But at conception a new and genetically distinct human being has its beginning.

As a point of doctrine, yes. But it’s facile to say that if only Augustine had known the science we know today, he would have come to the same conclusions, because the science per se has nothing to say about why an ovum is essentially a specialized cell of the mother but a fertilized ovum is essentially a new human being.

I expect in the next few decades that induced human parthenogenesis, resulting in a living human being, will have been achieved-- so this idea of sperm fertilization being the milestone of crossing from nonhuman to human will need to be revisited. Some teratomas would be completely viable now, if they only hadn’t started developing too early.

 

[Ender]

As a point of doctrine, yes.

That life begins at conception is not merely a point of doctrine; it the recognized science. If you wish to challenge the science, go for it - but within the science of embryology there isn’t any debate over this point.

*"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the **spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the *zygote."
[Langman, Jan. *Medical Embryology. 3rd edition]

Ender

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

That is a descriptive statement about normal human embryo development; it does not make any prescriptive moral claims that a cell has a spiritual soul before that moment, at that moment, or after that moment.

It’s clearly not the case that one can use science alone to inform an opinion about this matter – if so, we wouldn’t have things like embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, or abortion. So I think JimG is still giving undue moral authority to purely scientific findings in the earlier post.

Originally posted by JimG:
But we have known for a long time now, biologically, that’s not how it works. There’s nothing “unformed” about a new embryo. Even from the moment of conception, it demonstrates a teleology, beginning its growth to adulthood.

Augustine considered aborting an “unformed” embryo to be something less than killing a human being, but still immoral. If he had our scientific knowledge, he would not have considered the embryo at any stage of development to anything other than a human being

But Augustine’s likely understanding of reproduction would have, if anything, ascribed the same value to the germ cells that we ascribe to zygotes. It was commonly thought that a father transmitted a homunculus to the womb, which was then nurtured into an infant by the mother’s body. With that understanding, an argument from teleology based on the science of the time would value every sperm as a human life.

The alternative to this, evident in Augustine’s writings, is that a human fetus acquires a spiritual soul sometime during gestation.

Indeed, in Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II writes:

Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. …] Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide “a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?”

Furthermore, what is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo.

Which is an excellent way to separate the Church’s moral teaching and authority from any eventual secular consensus on when a human embryo becomes worthy of protection under the law.

Biologically, science says nothing about personhood – there’s no scientific way to argue that a zygote – or a three-year-old – should be afforded respect and a right to life. That takes faith and will.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

That is a descriptive statement about normal human embryo development; it does not make any prescriptive moral claims that a cell has a spiritual soul before that moment, at that moment, or after that moment.

It’s clearly not the case that one can use science alone to inform an opinion about this matter – if so, we wouldn’t have things like embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, or abortion. So I think JimG is still giving undue moral authority to purely scientific findings in the earlier post.

But Augustine’s likely understanding of reproduction would have, if anything, ascribed the same value to the germ cells that we ascribe to zygotes. It was commonly thought that a father transmitted a homunculus to the womb, which was then nurtured into an infant by the mother’s body. With that understanding, an argument from teleology based on the science of the time would value every sperm as a human life.

The alternative to this, evident in Augustine’s writings, is that a human fetus acquires a spiritual soul sometime during gestation.

Indeed, in Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II writes:

Which is an excellent way to separate the Church’s moral teaching and authority from any eventual secular consensus on when a human embryo becomes worthy of protection under the law.

Biologically, science says nothing about personhood – there’s no scientific way to argue that a zygote – or a three-year-old – should be afforded respect and a right to life. That takes faith and will.

Okay we know how you feel about eggs, what is your take on sperm?

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

Okay we know how you feel about eggs, what is your take on sperm?

They’re all genetically unique and – if they are successful in fertilizing an egg – will grow into baby if all goes well. So considering biological and genetic “telos,” sperm and egg are of the same quality.

My concern is the use of incomplete or inaccurate understanding of scientific findings to attempt to bolster Catholic teaching. It doesn’t need the bolstering, and even if it did, it couldn’t find such bolstering in the scientific findings.

Gametes are genetically unique and different from their parents. This means that the idea that fertilization is somehow a privileged event in forming a unique organism is incorrect. It is an important and heretofore necessary step, but the genetic components of the individual predate fertilization. If all goes well, a pair of gametes will grow into a human being. This means that the purely mechanistic idea of having human potential (as opposed to being endowed with a soul) extends to before fertilization.

But going the other way, genetic identity isn’t even the same as human identity – just watch an episode of “Maury” featuring identical twins as suspected fathers!

Scientifically speaking, this is all much too complex to dismiss the writings of some early church fathers as borne from mere biological ignorance. Pope John Paul II had the right approach in my opinion – abortion is always a grave sin, and since we do not know for sure when a human is endowed with a soul, we should err on the side of caution rather than hope that we are committing a slightly less grievous offense than murder.

 

[JimG]

Well, I can only re-post this quote provided by Ender:

*"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the **spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the *zygote." [Langman, Jan. *Medical Embryology. 3rd edition]

In my own posts, I said nothing about souls or about personhood. Neither one can be observed biologically. The fact remains that a new human individual begins at conception.

Filippo, you seem to prefer Augustine’s biology to current biological knowledge. I don’t know whether you are saying that human beings really begin with the production of the ovum, or whether human beings begin with the production of a sperm, or whether they don’t begin until some months after conception.

Please decide: when does a new human being begin? Shall the destruction of sperm and ova be considered equivalent to abortion?

Or is this just an end run in order to obfuscate the science and deny that any new human being has a beginning point?

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

That passage as it stands is imprecise – it should at least say “the development of one or more human beings begins with fertilization” because of identical twins.

My point is and has always been that Augustine’s inaccuracy is not of a scientific nature. Twins and diploid teratomas both refute the inference that the genetic uniqueness and completeness of an individual human’s chromosomes are somehow linked to considering someone a human – in the case of twins, people are treated as individuals despite being genetically indistinguishable from each other, and in the case of teratoma and fetus in fetu, genetically unique organisms are treated as tumors and are removed.

As I understand it, the modern Church teaches that an Augustine-style separation of conception and “ensoulment” is too risky, especially considering that a hypothetical abortion before “ensoulment” would be a sin anyway. But the Church doesn’t need the modern scientific discoveries about genetics to make this case.

 

[Ender]

That is a descriptive statement about normal human embryo development; it does not make any prescriptive moral claims that a cell has a spiritual soul before that moment, at that moment, or after that moment.

The issue raised was about the beginning of human life, not about ensoulment. Augustine was in ignorance of the science but there was no error in his position. He knew what he didn’t know and made no pronouncements about it.

The alternative to this, evident in Augustine’s writings, is that a human fetus acquires a spiritual soul sometime during gestation.

Augustine probably thought that humans acquired souls when they were created, but since he didn’t know when they were created he was likely unsure as to when they were ensouled. Again, though, this point is irrelevant to the thread topic. Pelosi misrepresented Church teaching on the beginning of life.

Biologically, science says nothing about personhood – there’s no scientific way to argue that a zygote – or a three-year-old – should be afforded respect and a right to life. That takes faith and will.

Biologically, science says nothing about unicorns either, which is unsurprising as neither term represents something real. Personhood is a term invented for the sole purpose of denying a specific class of humans their human rights. Blacks, Indians, Jews … and the unborn … have experience with the results of such efforts.

Ender

 

[KevinJFUm]

Ahh… Nancy Pelosi, the famed Doctor of the Church from the United States.

But in all seriousness, sad times… Sad times…

AND GRUMPY TIMES THAT PEOPLE LIKE HER MISLEAD THE FLOCK!! ARGHSHJHESJHDLHLJALJFLW!!!

 

[FreeSpirit1]

How would Nancy Pelosi respond to the following anecdote?

**A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said:

'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help!

My baby is not even 1 yr. old and I’m pregnant again.

I don’t want kids so close together.’

So the doctor said: ‘Ok, and what do you want me to do?’

She said: ‘I want you to end my pregnancy, and I’m counting on your help with this.’

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady:**

*‘I think I have a better solution for your problem. It’s less dangerous for you too.’

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.

Then he continued: You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let’s kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born.

If we’re going to kill one of them, it doesn’t matter which one it is.*

*There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It’s a crime to kill a child!

‘I agree’, the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be ok with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.
*

Good one!