enerbol and Hydatidiform-Mole

Results of recent research on hydatidiform moles and teratomas show that during pregnancy the embryo does not receive any message or information from the mother able to control the mechanisms of development or to produce the type of cellular differentiation necessary for building the tissues of the new human adult. Thus, the biological identity of the new human being does not depend on the sojourn in the uterus; the preimplantation embryo is the same individual of the human species as the adult, into whom the embryo can in principle develop.

Topics: Beginning of Human Life; Embryonic and Fetal Development; Female; Genetic Diseases, Inborn; Human Characteristics; Humanism; Humans; Hydatidiform Mole; Life; Male; Maternal-Fetal Exchange; Personhood; Pregnancy; Sperm-Ovum Interactions; Teratoma; Theology; Uterine Neoplasms

The thesis that the human zygote is essentially identical with the person into which it can develop is difficult to maintain, because the zygote can become several persons. In addition, the thesis depends upon ambiguities in the notions of human being, human individual, human body, and soul. A human being may be individual in the sense of either a biologically integrated unity or a psychologically integrated unity. A person is a psychologically integrated unity, because it must unify its experiences in morally imputable actions. To say that the zygote is a person requires one to assert that the zygote has the same principle of psychological integration, i.e., a rational soul, as one who can obviously manifest psychological integration. The assertion is incapable of being justified in empirical (e.g., non-religious) terms.

Topics: Beginning of Human Life; Embryonic and Fetal Development; Female; Genetic Diseases, Inborn; Human Characteristics; Human Development; Humanism; Humans; Hydatidiform Mole; Individuality; Life; Metaphysics; Personhood; Philosophy, Medical; Pregnancy; Teratoma; Theology; Twinning, Monozygotic; Zygote

Topics: Animals; Female; Humans; Hydatidiform Mole; Life; Moles; Nevus; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications; Uterine Neoplasms

Topics: Animals; Female; Humans; Hydatidiform Mole; Infant; Life; Moles; Pregnancy; Uterine Neoplasms