UPDATE 12/5/11: The Gingrich Campaign responded. I’m not entirely sold on the response. Check it out.
That title isn’t a mistake. It’s the question that Newt Gingrich’s comments to Jake Tapper have brought into sharp relief.
When the Speaker said that we have life at implantation, he stepped on a land mine. I’m awaiting his clarification on his understanding of conception and life.
He has often said that life begins at conception. So do pro-choicers, as they are operating under the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s redefinition (four decades ago) of conception and pregnancy happening at implantation.
Thus, a pro-choicer could say with a straight face that life begins at conception, and with just as straight a face claim that Ella is not an abortifacient, because it prevents implantation. In this presidential season, we must make these two competing operational definitions of conception and pregnancy known, and we must call the other side out at every turn to clarify what they mean by conception and life.
It matters.
We await Mr. Gingrich’s clarification of his understanding of these terms, and the meaning of his comments to Jake Tapper.
Coming Home 
Whoever catechised Newt did a lousy job. His Catholicism does not inform his politics. America. Remember his ” right wing social engineering” comment aimed at truly Catholic Paul Ryan?
My question is what does Mr. Gingrich think of abortion? Does he hold that abortion is intrinsicly evil and therefore always wrong? Or is he yet another dime-a-dozen Republican who subscribes to the Three Exceptions error (rape, incest, life-of-mother)? If he is the latter, then I’ll cut him some slack on the when-life-begins response. If the former, then yeah, bad formation leads to bad conclusions about abortion.
P.S. While when-life-begins and ensoulment are not exactly the same thing, I think it is worthwhile to review the Vatican’s Document on Procured Abortion: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html Especially this easily overlooked footnote that establishes that the evilness of abortion does not stand or fall on when a body is ensouled:
19. This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent for two reasons: (1) supposing a belated animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed, (2) on the other hand, it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul.
D’oh! I meant, “If he is the former”.
Yes. I want a VERY CLEAR understanding of his position on life, contraception, and all related issues. As a now professed Catholic, he better crystal clear about this!
[…] Coming Home and John Jacubczyk report on Newt Gingrich’s apparent confusion on his own position as to when life begins. […]