It's Science 101 time for the editorialists at the Washington Post, whose opposition to Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is so fierce that they will literally twist the facts of life to fit their agenda.
As Steve Ertelt at Life News noted Tuesday afternoon, the editorial involved includes "a rather un-scientific claim," namely that "an unborn baby shortly after conception" doesn't achieve status as a "living being" until implantation in the mother's womb.
Here is what the Post's editiorial said (bolds are mine throughout this post):
The practical effects of “personhood” measures, including the one in Virginia to which Mr. Cuccinelli affixed his name (in 2007 -- Ed.), would easily include banning the most popular forms of contraception. This is because the pill, as well as other forms of birth control, work partly by preventing the implantation of eggs in the uterus wall after they have been fertilized. If the “preborn” are protected “from the moment of fertilization,” as the 2007 bill demanded, then contraception — which defeats a fertilized egg’s chances of becoming a living being — could be prohibited.
Uh, the fertilized egg is already "a living being," guys.
Ertelt went to Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations at the Washington Office of the Christian Media and Dental Association, for a scientifically valid and common-sense response:
The Post is entitled to its own editorial opinions but not its own facts, and scientific fact clearly contradicts the assertion that “contraception … defeats a fertilized egg’s chances of becoming a living being.”
Embryology textbooks clarify the lay term “fertilized egg” as “... a zygote or fertilized ovum which is the primordium or beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization. ... This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”
“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed. ...”
So contrary to the Post, not only is a “fertilized egg” a living being; he or she is a human being. A human being is by nature a person, defined as “a human being regarded as an individual.” But political ideology prevents the admission that abortion claims the life of a moving, smiling, hiccupping, grimacing, living human being–a person.
The Post's editorialists are uncomfortable with admitting to the inarguable fact that forms of contraception used by millions of couples which proactively prevent implantation snuff out the lives couples may create during intercourse. Thus, it's much easier to dishonestly and backhandedly claim that the fertilized egg really isn't "a living being" until it achieves implantation. Too bad that wishing it were so doesn't make it so.
Meanwhile, the Post's editorial writers apparently have no problem with the fact, noted last month by Cortney O'Brien at Townhall, that Cuccinelli's Democrat opponent, world-class corrupt cronyism practitioner Terry McAuliffe, has "chosen to be friends with the dangerous late-term abortion industry." In other words, McAuliffe is all for the idea of permitting the killing of what the even the Post's editorial writers have admitted is a "living being" as late as possible during a woman's pregnancy.
But Ken Cuccinelli is the extremist. Sure, guys.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
