Bill Clinton: Embryos Might Become Fertilized & Become Human Beings

Thanks to Kelly Clark for her blog and the link to the video of Dr. Gupta and Bill Clinton, in which Clinton warns about using any fertilized embryos for research.

Comments

[Joe Long]

Well, no wonder! It's all a misunderstanding. Here I'd leapt to judgement on President Clinton...but no, he's just been unaware of the "birds and bees" all this time.

Another failure of education, apparently.

[Kamilla]

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I'll probably end up doing both.

Kamilla

[Nick]

Oh my.

[Bob]

Does it really make us look good to get so excited about the fact that Clinton mispoke? I mean, c'mon, are we really going to bank on the idea that he doesn't know that an embryo is fertilized? Sounds like a pretty stupid plan, and I'm sure not getting behind it.

[Jody+]

I agree Bob... it seems to me that Clinton probably meant "implanted" more than "fertilized." However, his mistake is probably more revelatory of the average American's understanding of this than people want to admit. Most people aren't all that bright, and I'm sure they think of "embryonic stem cells" as simply some cells from among others--they don't think about them as--to use Clinton's words, little babies.

The major problem is that we have citizens who don't know what they're talking about voting for politicians who don't know what they are talking about who then push for policies that are at least 10 years behind the curve on science. Has anyone been following the recent developments with stem cells derived from adult skin cells? Now that's cutting edge. The folks pushing for embryonic stem cell research today seem to be doing it with nothing but $$$ in mind.

[Kamilla]

Oh, I dunno, Bob. I think it's rather humorous to have the man married to the smartest woman in the world "misspeak" (more than once) in an interview after enduring 8+ years of the "objective" media telling us what a dolt George W. Bush is.

Kamilla

[Wolf Paul]

Actually, googling for "fertilized embryo" yields a huge number of hits so it seems Bill Clinton is not the only one using this term less than accurately. Also explains why Dr Gupta did not immediately challenge him on it.
One current example is an AP article about Obama's reversal of Bush's funding restrictions, but there are many others.

[Ellen]

Jody:
Thanks for your kind spin on Clinton meaning "implanted" not "fertilized." However, he did say it multiple times. After the first "misspeak" I expected Clinton or Gupta to correct. Three misspeaks later, I decided it was intentional. It harks back to the Monica Lewisnsky days "It depends on what 'is" means..."

[marianne]

Bob,

Clinton wasn't "mis-speaking". 4 or 5 times he used a specific word with a meaning that is not at all similar to the word you say he meant, in sound, spelling, meaning or use. He wasn't hurried, he came around to it again and again.

What's more, the reputed almost was Surgeon General of the US, Chief Medical Consultant for the worldwide CNN, medical doctor Gupta allowed him to "mis-speak' 4 or 5 times in such an egregious, embarrassing way for an "expert" defending Obama's action. No, Gupta had ample opportunity to clear up a "mis-speak".

It was a deliberate use of "fertilization", I believe, to mislead those who would have problems experimenting with a fertilized egg; most folks know - if nothing else - that life begins with fertilization. Just watch: we'll find this use of "fertilization" come to be accepted.

We need to object strongly to outright falsehoods and artful deceptions, particularly coming from influential reputed "experts". Let's say you are correct and it was just an uncorrected by the medical doctor conducting the interview "mis-speak". What was the outcome? Millions and millions worldwide heard it said repeatedly that embryos are not fertilized and not "on the way to being babies". That might be the most information on the subject they get in a year. That merits getting into high dudgeon, Bob.

[Joe Long]

More "mis-inform" than "mis-speak", methinks. The repetition of this deliberate misstatement contributes to the perception social leftists would LIKE the public to have, of this issue - and our esteemed President Clinton has seldom been accused of letting the literal truth get in the way of an agenda.

Anyone think there was actually an equal chance he might have misspoken in the embryo's favor, and that it was pure coincidence he "erred" in the direction he did?

[Michael D. Harmon]

Here's a link to my column this week on stem cells, if anyone's interested:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/comments.php?id=244583

[Mike Melendez]

I read through the interview and concluded that President Clinton did, if unintentionally, speak in favor of life. He knows that fertilized embryos are human beings. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know that all embryos are fertilized. Worse, as noted, most of the public probably doesn't either.

He certainly wasn't mispeaking about implantation. He's made clear he has no problem destroying implanted embryos, even if he would like it to be rare.

I'd like to think Dr Gupta was giving President Clinton all the rope he would take, but I suspect his silence on the mistake was to avoid embarassing the man.

[Scott Johnston]

Bill Clinton used the very same term, "fertilized," in the same way, before this interview with Dr. Gupta. On February 17, on Larry King Live, he said the following:

"But this stem cell research, if the stem cells are frozen embryonic stem cells, if they are never going to be used to be fertilized, to bring a life into being, then I think making them available for medical research is the pro-life position and I honestly don't understand -- I would understand it if we were going and raiding stem cell banks, where these stem cells were going to be used to actually fertilize eggs and have babies.

"But it's not going to happen. I think it's very wrong to just throw these things in the trash can."
(see http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0902/17/lkl.01.html)
hat tip to Jill Stanek (see http://tinyurl.com/co9kju)

It truly seems he is either clueless about the basic biology, or, he is deliberately lying for ideological purposes.

[Russell]

It is promlematic that the media and scientific community allow such outlandish misrepresentations from being corrected especially when they were uttered by a former president. Remember when the media tried to point out mistakes made by political figures and science was about objective facts? ... Or does it depend on what the meaning of fact is?