Someone Show Clinton Correct Definition of Embryo

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, Obama's former surgeon general nominee, filled in for Larry King on Wednesday when he interviewed Bill Clinton. Look especially in between the *s for Clinton's brilliant medical analysis of embryos.

BILL CLINTON: I think -- the answer is I think that we’ll work it through. When it’s -- if it -- particularly, if it’s done right. If it’s obvious that *we’re not taking embryos that can -- that under any conceivable scenario would be used for a process that would allow them to be fertilized and become little babies*, and I think if it’s obvious that we’re not talking about some science fiction cloning of human beings, then I think the American people will support this. I think they’ll support it because we want to solve type 1 diabetes. We want to solve -- we want to find out about whether Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s can be reversed. We want a whole range of other things. And I think at some point, you know -- maybe it’s -- decades down the way -- if somebody severs an arm and you try to sew it back on, and you’re missing some component things, if you can figure out how to fill in the blanks, I think people would like that. So I think we'll just have to debate it as we go along. I think -- I was anxious for the president to do this and get this research going again --

GUPTA: Any reservations?

CLINTON: Well, my only -- I don’t know that I have any reservations, but I was -- he has apparently decided to leave to the relevant professional committees the definition of which *frozen embryos would not be -- are basically going to be discarded, because they’re not going to be fertilized*. I think the American people believe it’s a pro-life decision to use an *embryo that’s frozen -- it’s never going to be fertilized for embryonic stem cell research*, especially since now, notwithstanding some promising developments, most of the scientists in this field and the doctors will tell you they don’t know of any other source that’s as good as embryonic stem cells for all the various things that need to be researched. But those committees need to be really careful to make sure if they don’t want a big storm to be stirred up here, that any of the embryos that are used clearly have been placed beyond the pale of being fertilized before their use. There are plenty -- *there are a large number of embryos that we know are never going to be fertilized*, where the people who are in control of them have made that clear. That -- the research ought to be confined to those, and I think the committees will surely do that. But that I think is the only area of debate that I sort of saw.

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http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/03/12/cnns-gupta-fails-correct-bill-clinton-s-multiple-fertilized-gaffe
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My Thoughts

An embryo by definition is a ferilized egg that has begun cell division until the end of the first trimester. So, Clinton is just flat out wrong. If he doesn't even know what an embryo is, he shouldn't have anything to say about the issue.

Another thing is why would a man who Obama wanted to be the surgeon general not catch that major gaffe? I would hope that the man that would be the top doctor in the nation would know the difference between an egg and an embryo. If not, it's a good thing he withdrew from the surgeon general post. However, it is more likely that he didn't want to embaress the former Democratic president. According to News Busters, Gupta was a “featured attendee” at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in 2006. I guess this must have left a soft spot in Gupta's heart for the former president.