B
Brandon_Cal
Guest
I’m trying to understand the Catholic belief of “personhood at the moment of conception” in light of various cases of embryological development.
We’ll start with monozygotic twins, as those are the most well-known. I doubt the Catholic position is that monozygotic twins share a single soul, so what is the Catholic explanation for there being two souls arising from a single fertilized egg and sperm? Does the soul split also? Does God preemptively endow the single zygote with two souls knowing that it will eventually split? Is one twin the “real person” while the other is a soulless zombie, though we’d never be able to tell which one is the “real person” so we must treat both as people?
The inverse case would be that of a genetic chimera. I guess the same questions would apply: Do genetic chimeras possess two souls since they begin as two separate zygotes? Or do the two souls fuse into one? Of does God preemptively endow each zygote with only half a soul knowing that the two will eventually fuse?
Craniopagus parasiticus is incredibly rare, but it does nevertheless occur naturally so a theological explanation must exist. Do such individuals have two souls (just as a conjoined twin would have) or does the “development” of the soul of the parasitic twin also stop with its body, while the autositic twin has a fully developed soul? Does God preemptively endow only the autositic twin with a soul in his omniscience that the parasitic twin will need to be removed? Is it even permissible within a Catholic ethical framework to remove a parasitic twin in order to save the autositic twin (resulting in the death of the parasitic twin)?
I know I’ve asked a lot of questions here, but as you can see they all share a common theme: “personhood”, souls, and biology.
We’ll start with monozygotic twins, as those are the most well-known. I doubt the Catholic position is that monozygotic twins share a single soul, so what is the Catholic explanation for there being two souls arising from a single fertilized egg and sperm? Does the soul split also? Does God preemptively endow the single zygote with two souls knowing that it will eventually split? Is one twin the “real person” while the other is a soulless zombie, though we’d never be able to tell which one is the “real person” so we must treat both as people?
The inverse case would be that of a genetic chimera. I guess the same questions would apply: Do genetic chimeras possess two souls since they begin as two separate zygotes? Or do the two souls fuse into one? Of does God preemptively endow each zygote with only half a soul knowing that the two will eventually fuse?
Craniopagus parasiticus is incredibly rare, but it does nevertheless occur naturally so a theological explanation must exist. Do such individuals have two souls (just as a conjoined twin would have) or does the “development” of the soul of the parasitic twin also stop with its body, while the autositic twin has a fully developed soul? Does God preemptively endow only the autositic twin with a soul in his omniscience that the parasitic twin will need to be removed? Is it even permissible within a Catholic ethical framework to remove a parasitic twin in order to save the autositic twin (resulting in the death of the parasitic twin)?
I know I’ve asked a lot of questions here, but as you can see they all share a common theme: “personhood”, souls, and biology.
