Parasitical Twins

[Kitteh]

You may have heard about that little Indian girl who was born with a parasitical twin attached to her, with legs, arms but no head. I’m just curious, does the parasitical twin count as a person with a soul, even though it can’t think, move, or do anything other than lay there? Doctors were forced to remove the twin from her in surgery. Would this be considered killing a person? I’ve always wondered about situations like this.

 

[graceandglory]

You may have heard about that little Indian girl who was born with a parasitical twin attached to her, with legs, arms but no head. I’m just curious, does the parasitical twin count as a person with a soul, even though it can’t think, move, or do anything other than lay there? Doctors were forced to remove the twin from her in surgery. Would this be considered killing a person? I’ve always wondered about situations like this.

Great moral dilemma. I have seen a few medical programs on cable tv regarding this. I’ve even watched the programs with my twin sons.
It’s pretty rare. It made me think the same thing. The “parasitical” twin is causing the death of the other. Do you take the life of one to save the other, or let both die. Both WILL die.

One of them is clearly taking the life of the other, medically.

It seems to me, and from all the Catholic moral teaching that I know, that it would be an excruciatingly painful decision to make, but to try to save the one baby that is living. The only way to do that would be to remove the parasitical twin that is killing it.

It seems justifiable, like in a self-defense case.
If someone were aiming a gun at your child, would you not be justified in shooting the person to prevent him from hurting your child?

It’s a very interesting dilemma. One I hope I would never have to actually face.

 

[GemmaRose]

I’m not sure if the parasitical twin would be considered to be a “person” without having a head or brain which is what controls the rest of the body, together with the fact that any “life” the parasitical twin had was being drained from the healthy twin.

Interesting case.

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*“I wish that my heart could beat, that I could live and breathe only for Jesus, I wish that my tongue could utter no other name than that of Jesus; that my eye could see only Jesus; that my pen could write only about Jesus, and that my thoughts could soar to nothing but Jesus. I have often wondered where on earth there might be something on which I could center my love. But neither on earth nor in heaven do I find any such thing but only my beloved Jesus… I am the fruit of your passion, Jesus, born of your wounds. O Jesus, seek me in love; I no longer possess anything; you have stolen my heart…” *- St. Gemma Galgani

 

[Jeanne_dArc]

Oftentimes the other “twin” past away in-utero and then it’s limbs, face, etc were absorbed into the other twin.

 

[pathia]

I don’t like to think on this often, but I have rather…bizarre chromosomes. I have a mixture of XX, XY and XXY. There are several causes of this, one of them is that I was twins (In fact I was, very early on according to my mom). And…I absorbed my twin sister early on, which would lead to my scrambled chromosomes.

That’s only one way it could have happened, but it is one of the more horrifying ones to think about too deeply.