Human Development and Reconsideration of Ensoulment

Durant Will , and Ariel 1968. The Lessons of History. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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McCormick Richard A. 1991. Who or What is the Pre-embryo? Kennedy Instit. Ethics J., 1: 1–15.

This stage is called the blastocyst. It is composed of cells of the embryo proper and cells destined to become part of the placenta and fetal membranes.

McCormick, pages 5 & 8. These references to edicts from Pope Pius IX (1869) and Pope John Paul II (1982) leave no doubt.

Grobstein Clifford , 1988. Science and the Unborn. p. 61. New York: Basic Books.

McCormick , Page 1.

Sidman R.L. 1970. Cell proliferation, migration and interaction in the developing mammalian central nervous system. In, The Neurosciences, Second Study Program. Ed., Schmidt F.O. , pp. 100–107, New York, Rockefeller Univ. Press. See Discussion.

Angevine J.B. 1970. Time of neuron origin in the diencephalon of the mouse. An autoradiographic study. J. Comp. Neurol, 139: 129–188. See Discussion.

This is a process called apoptosis by which certain cells are programmed genomically to die. This is a method invoked during development which, in significant manner, accounts for sculpturing and modeling of different tissues and organs in the embryo and fetus.

Stedman's Medical Dictionary. 1990. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkens.

Patten Badley 3rd ed. 1968. Human Embryology. p. 49. New York: McGraw-Hill.

McCormick , p. 2.

Grobstein , 1988, p. 61.

Grobstein Clifford . 1989. When does life begin? Psychology Today, September, pp. 43–46.

Grobstein , 1988, p. 25.

Grobstein , 1989, p. 44.

American Fertility Society, Ethics Committee of the. 1986. Ethical Considerations of the New Reproductive Technologies. Fert. & Ster. 46(Suppl. 1): 265.

Thompson James S. , and Margaret W. 4th ed. (Rev., M. Thompson) 1986. Genetics in Medicine. p. 274. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.

Moore Keith , 4th Ed. 1988. The Developing Human. pp. 122–126. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.

This is called atresia. It is a degenerative process for ova, fertilized ova (zygotes), and further stages alike. The exact reasons why this occurs are not known; however, development relies on a synchrony of events, prior to and after fertilization. Therein, most probably lie the answers.

McCormick , p. 4.

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Moore , p. 294.

Patten , p. 100.

McCormick , p. 12.

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