Is there life after life? Superfetation in medical, historical and rabbinic literature

Abstract

__Case Report__ __On January 18, 2008 a unique medical case was reported in the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. Two babies were carried in the same womb, born only one minute apart, yet Thomas and Harriet Mullineux are not twins. They were conceived three weeks apart thanks to an extraordinary twist of nature. Their mother Charlotte had been pregnant with twins when at seven weeks she miscarried one of them. But two weeks later, she discovered, after undergoing a follow-up ultrasound, that she was carrying another fetus - conceived separately and still growing in her womb. The surviving twin and the new baby were born in May of 2007. __This case, which may represent an extraordinarily rare, and not well documented, phenomenon, is the substance of this brief essay. We shall address the medical, historical and halakhic aspects of this case