The Church clearly teaches that life begins at conception and ends at natural death (Evangelium Vitae #60). But the Massachusetts legislature is set to consider a bill that redefines the beginning of human life as implantation of the embryo in the uterus, not conception.

This legislation should be abhorrent to faithful Catholics but, like homosexual marriage and human cloning, the Catholic members of the Massachusetts legislature will overwhelmingly support it.

Don't expect this attempt to justify cloning and fetal tissue research to end in Massachusetts. It's an effective ploy to provide moral and scientific cover for the research that biotech companies are determined to pursue.

This debate over implantation is not new. In December 2001, the bishops of Ireland issued a statement in support of an amendment to the Irish Constitution stating that life begins at implantation. A protracted and angry public debate ensued during which pro-life leaders took both sides of the issue.

The amendment was intended to offset a decision of the Irish Supreme Court in what was called the X-case. The parents of a 14-year old girl stated publicly they were going to defy Irish law by taking their daughter to England for an abortion because the girl was threatening suicide.

The Supreme Court ruled in her favor on the basis that the possibility of her suicide superceded the rights of her unborn child.

Since the judges did not specify a time limit on abortion it became, in principle, available until the moment of birth. After much wrangling, the majority political party proposed an amendment to the constitution prohibiting abortion after implantation.

The Irish bishops surprised many people by supporting the amendment. They were accused of compromising Church teaching. The bishops adamantly defended their support by arguing, "It is our conviction that the new proposal represents a considerable improvement on the existing situation, and that it does not in itself deny or devalue the worth and dignity of the human embryo prior to implantation."

They were particularly aware of how such a compromise might affect future legislation in the area of bioethics. Their statement reads as if they could see the future machinations of the Massachusetts legislature. The bishops said, "In particular, we are concerned that adequate and clear legal protection be offered to the unborn prior to implantation. This is particularly urgent in view of what is happening and what is likely to happen in the area of cloning and research on human embryos, and also in the area of assisted human reproduction where particular problems arise regarding the storage and disposal of human embryos. It is of vital importance that embryos are never treated other than as human persons whose inherent worth and dignity are valued and vindicated."

In the world of practical politics, the public rarely follows more than one distinction, and the statement of the Irish bishops was crammed full of them. The Catholics of Ireland who had been taught that life begins at conception were confused by the amendment, and the measure narrowly lost by one percentage point.

Massachusetts Governor Romney knows what his legislature is up to. He has said he will veto any bill that allows the creation of human clones for the purpose of fetal experimentation. His tactic now is to gut the bill by offering new amendments to the legislation that will ban human cloning. In addition, Romney stated his opposition to the new definition of human life, calling it completely unnecessary.

Romney's explanation for rejecting the implantation definition challenges the Catholics who support it. "It is very conceivable," he says, "that scientific advances will allow an embryo to be grown for a substantial period of time outside the uterus. To say that it is not life at one month or two months or four months or full term, just because it had never been in a uterus, would be absurd."

Those supporting the implantation legislation may try to cite the case of the Irish bishops for support. It should be clear that the motives of those bishops and the Massachusetts legislature are entirely opposite.

The Irish bishops in 2001 were trying to protect the unborn, after implantation, from the harm of abortion. The Massachusetts legislation in 2005 is trying to create an open season on embryos in the approximately 14 days before implantation.

To view an embryo as lacking humanity because it has not yet attached itself to the uterus is absurd, as Governor Romney said. On this point, the Irish bishops and the Mormon Governor of Massachusetts are in total agreement.

The underlying irony of the Massachusetts legislation is that implicit in the new advances of genetics that have made cloning possible lies the evidence that refutes their definition of when human life begins.

Professor Jerome Lejeune was a pioneer in genetics and prenatal science at the University of Paris. For Lejeune, the genetic material suddenly present at the moment of conception provided scientific evidence of the beginning of an individual human life.

Lejeune explained why the Massachusetts legislation is contrary to reason, even on scientific grounds. In their rush to justify their determination to clone human beings, the Massachusetts legislators are ignoring the significance of DNA in the very first cell of human conception.

Lejeune testified before the Louisiana State Legislature in 1990 on this issue (He died in 1994).

"Each of us has a very precise starting moment, which is the time at which the whole necessary and sufficient genetic information is gathered inside one cell, the fertilized egg, and this moment is the moment of fertilization. We know that this information is written on a kind of ribbon which we call DNA."

Life, Lejeune summarized, is written in a fantastically miniaturized language.

Catholics dominate the legislature in Massachusetts. They ignore Church teaching, and they ignore the pleas of their state Catholic conference. Perhaps they will listen to the scientific evidence that implantation is just one more stage of human development that began at the moment of onception.

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