For years, the pro-life community's has defined life as "from conception to natural death," a line that Republicans echoed in their efforts to please the movement.
Not so with Newt Gingrich, who defined life at the moment of implantation in a recent interview with Jake Tapper of ABC News:
TAPPER: When do you think human life begins?
GINGRICH: Well, I think the question of being implanted is a very big question. My friends who have ideological positions that sound good don’t then follow through the logic of: ‘So how many additional potential lives are they talking about? What are they going to do as a practical matter to make this real?’
I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life. because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions
TAPPER: So implantation is the moment for you.
GINGRICH: Implantation and successful implantation.
The "from conception to natural death" line has recently come under attack from the pro-choice movement, who suggest that if you believe in life at conception, you are against birth control.
This distinction surrounds the period in which a fertilized egg implants in the womb. Some forms of contraception, such as abortifactants, work to prevent the fertilized egg from ever implanting in the womb.
Democrats are now exploiting this nuance against pro-life politicians who have grown used to declaring that life begins at conception.
When Mitt Romney asserted that he favored a Human Life Amendment defining life beginning at conception, the DNC was quick to attack him for "opposing birth control" as highlighted in this ominous ad.
Pro-choice activists also crushed the proposed Personhood Amendment in Mississippi with the same argument.
By choosing to campaign on the notion that life begins at implantation, Gingrich knowingly disregards the definition of life defined by the Catholic Church, the faith he now claims as his own after converting in 2009.
It's an issue that fellow Catholic Rick Santorum is sure to exploit in the upcoming abortion forum in Iowa tonight hosted by Mike Huckabee.
