Biden Says Life Begins at Conception

Mr. Brokaw:
But if you, you believe that life begins at conception, and you’ve also voted for abortion rights…

Mr. Biden: No, what I voted (was) against curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion. I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it’s a moment of conception. There is a debate in our church, as Cardinal Egan would acknowledge, that’s existed. Back in “Summa Theologia,” when Thomas Aquinas wrote “Summa Theologia,” he said there was no — it didn’t occur until quickening, 40 days after conception.

How am I going out and tell you, if you or anyone else that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith? And that’s the reason I haven’t. But then again, I also don’t support a lot of other things. I don’t support public, public funding. I don’t, because that flips the burden. That’s then telling me I have to accept a different view. This is a matter between a person’s God, however they believe in God, their doctor and themselves in what is always a — and what we’re going to be spending our time doing is making sure that we reduce considerably the amount of abortions that take place by providing the care, the assistance and the encouragement for people to be able to carry to term and to raise their children.

FYI, Thomas Aquinas "was an Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, a philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition."

Originally posted by jamie83
Your response, whether true or not, has nothing to do with taking a position that life begins at conception, and then being a proponent for experimenting on that life.

I know, my response was totally off topic. Apologies all around. But it is a true statement, it's not a "whether or not" sort of thing. It's a true statement. Off topic, but true.

Originally posted by jamie83
Also, part of the issue with stem cell research involves "harvesting" embryos for the research. Seems a person who thinks life begins at conception would be appalled at the prospects of harvesting this life for experimentation.

There are more than enough unused embryos that get destroyed that can be used for stem cell research, and there is NO need to harvest embryo's. So your statement is actually incorrect.

As a side-note, I actually don't believe that there should be federal funding for stem cell research. I think that should be left to the private sector where it has been working very well for years.