Spirit world: Pope: God considers embryos 'full and complete' humans

[emad]

Spirit world: Pope: God considers embryos 'full and complete' humans
Compiled by Jessica Ravitz



VATICAN CITY - The embryo is a ''full and complete'' human being even though it is ''shapeless,'' Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday, underscoring Roman Catholic teaching that abortion and the destruction of embryos for stem cell research are murder.


Benedict made his comments during a general audience on the feast day of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates the thousands of male infants slaughtered by Herod around the time of Christ's birth.


''The loving eyes of God turn toward the human being, considered full and complete in its beginning,'' Benedict said.

Benedict said Psalm 139's description of the human form as ''still 'shapeless' in the maternal uterus'' could be understood as a ''reference to the embryo, described in those terms as a tiny reality that is oval and rolled up.''

http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_3358555

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. This is just one person's interpretation, however

I know of other spiritual people who insist that the spirit doesn't necessarily enter the body until birth or even slightly after birth. What is sad is that this one man's interpretation has so much weight in world opinion, forcing those whose beliefs are different from his must abide with a concept which to them is not spiritually the way it is.

[ticapnews]

2. God told me He considers a person whole on their birthday

That's why we celebrate birthdays and not conceptiondays.

edit to add: God also said everyone has to send me $1 by next week or He'll send down a plague, so if you'd be so kind as to send a check or money order to:

Save the World Fund
PO Box 666
Washington DC 20008

;)

[emad]

4. And God told me that Karl Rove is Papa Ratzi's natural son, born

without a soul and hardly any brain.

No wonder.

[DrRang]

10. And Herod's Massacre of the Innocents? Never happened. n/t

[Boojatta]

3. Embryo is a ''full and complete'' human being Pope Benedict XVI said

... but when it grows a brain, development has gone too far. From the point of view of the Pope, a full and complete human being is a being that does not yet have a brain!

[monarch]

5. So at what point do the female embryos become less than full and complete?

[SharonAnn]

11. Thank you, I love that observation!

[HereSince1628]

6. As a biologist, I consider our embryos complete Homo sapiens

The questions and conflicts over humaness and legal personhood are based on conceptualizations and considerations outside of biology even though developmental events get used as evidence for one or another argument.

Biology doesn't really contain an answer, the answer seems to lie in the manner by which society defines how a human being is something other than an individual Homo sapiens. I've never seen and doubt I ever will see a statement concerning at what time of life a Homo sapiens becomes a human in a biology text.

[Boojatta]

12. With no brain, lungs, or digestive system, would you be "complete"?

"As a biologist, I consider our embryos complete Homo sapiens"

[HereSince1628]

15. Yes, just not fully developed.

If a 5 year old girl doesn't have milk ducts developed in her breasts does that mean she is incomplete? Probably not. We would say she has tissue with latent activity that will develop and grow during her adolesence.

The same is biologically true of a single cell Homo sapiens zygote. That single cell is complete in itself. It has the potential to develop into every cell type, tissue type and organ.

If someone wants to use the development of any organ as some sort of marker in a political debate they are free to do that. But I don't think any biologist would fail to recognize a Homo sapiens zygote as anything but completely Homo sapiens. And thats all I am saying. Distinctions of humaness and legal personhood do not exist in biology, even if religion, politics and law attempt to invoke biology as part of arguments about humaness and personhood.

On edit: I failed to answer the question you asked. Would _I_ be complete if I didn't have a brain, etc. Because I have developed those organs, if they were removed, I think it would be reasonable to say that dismemberment would leave a corpse that didn't have the complete complement of its organs.

[C_U_L8R]

7. "Every sperm is sacred"

(and every embryo too)

All this superstition is gonna be the end of us.

[chefgirl]

8. Just for the sake of having it said once in this thread

I happen to agree with the Pope, on a spiritual level. This is exactly the reason I am against abortion FOR MYSELF.

For women who do not share my belief, however, or who do share my belief and find abortion to be a necessary option, I completely support their right to make that choice FOR THEMSELVES.

With all respect, I don't think it's the 'superstition' that's the problem.

The problem is the right wing fundies who want to force their beliefs down everyone elses throats.

If more Liberals in government would just learn to address the issue of abortion the way I just did, it would take the wind right out of the right wing argument that liberals are pro abortion.

Liberals are pro choice, politically, even if some of us are pro life personally.

-chef-

[C_U_L8R]

14. I agree with you...

I was poking fun (at "them")... with a lotta help from Monty Python...

If we don't make fun of these people that want control over YOUR body...
then we're just gonna have to kill them :-)


(agent mike i'm still kiddin...)

[demigoddess]

25. because it might be a male sperm or fetus, once born, it might prove to

be a girl, whereupon it is immediately expendable.

[FloridaPat]

9. Then how come there are no funerals when a fetus is aborted by

the body by a Catholic?

[trotsky]

13. Which, of course, makes God the worlds #1 leading abortionist.

After all, about half of all embryos fail to implant in the uterus.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

19. And don't forget the miscarriages

They implant, then fail. Knocks out about another 1/4 to 1/3 of impanted embryos.

So we have a god that makes 100 "full and complete" human beings, then callously murders 60 of them for grins and giggles.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

16. Does this mean, then that Bennie the Rat

was a member of the Hitler Youth in the womb?

"Full and complete," right? Do little embryos goose-step in the womb like Pope Rat did as a boy? That hateful old fool might want to do just a little more thinking before any more pronouncements about being "full and complete." :puke:

Putting red shoes on him doesn't change an ass into pegasus.

[onager]

17. Onager World: Statements By Dinosaurs In Gold Prom Dresses Are Irrelevant

n/t

[beam me up scottie]

21. Where can I get a copy of Onager World?

I'd like it autographed if possible.

Make it out to The Uppity Atheist, please.

[onager]

23. On the way, via Vapor-Mail

:hi:

Happy New Year!

[noamnety]

18. The Vatican's position on this

has changed back and forth throughout history, depending on the politics of the day.

[CatholicEdHead]

20. How do miscarriages work into this ethics discussion?

Since they are more than an embryo, but a mass of cells that is expelled by the woman's body for whatever reason.

[Goblinmonger]

22. All catholics have to believe this

The pope has said it, it is so. I know I will take a lot of shit about this, but if you are catholic, you are bound by it. The pope has spoken "as the pope" to "Catholics as a whole" about matters of "faith and morals." Those are the requirements for something to be considered ex cathedra and he is, therefore, infallible about this.

I am so damn glad I left this club 20+ years ago.

[NMMNG]

24. Even the gay ones?

:shrug: