[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
usmccds423, if you looked at any entries in respectable dictionaries like Oxford or Webster, you would see that a parasite is not exclusively a creature of another species. Intraspecific parasitism happens all the time in the animal kingdom, usually among egg-laying species where an animal will lay an egg in the nest of another animal of its own species, so that the mother must care for another animal’s young.
A parasite is any animal that takes advantage of its host, regardless of species, gaining resources at the host’s expense. Before the word was used in a biological sense, it referred exclusively to humans: a parasite was simply a freeloader, literally one who ate at another man’s table, contributing little or nothing to his host in return.
We may not like to refer to an unborn child as a parasite, because of the but essentially that is what it is: during gestation it receives nutrients from its host (the mother), decreasing her fitness and causing her to require more nutrients and other resources to support both her and it.
Technically speaking, for the gestational period, it would be an endoparasite (like a tapeworm), because it is inside the mother’s body, and after birth it would be an ectoparasite, like a tick, that lives outside of the host’s body.
This is not to say that babies are tapeworms or ticks. Babies are cute and fuzzy, whereas ticks typically are not. But the gestation and raising of a child involves an implicit acceptance of the parasite-host relationship on the part of the mother.
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I like you Varqanir, but this is ridiculous. You could could call almost everything a parasite using the above definition. Every person on government assistance, every child, every person on life support, etc… Yet we do not kill (was gonna say murder, yikes!) any of them. (with the exception of life support although I would content that is just allowig nature to take it’s course, which is the opposite of an abortion).
Didn’t I link Webster?
“Intraspecific parasitism happens all the time in the animal kingdom,” can you give me an example? I have never heard of a species of animal that lays an egg in the same species nest to absolve them of rearing their offspring. Even if an example exists, it’s still not the same thing. In zero circumstance does one woman lay an “egg” in another woman without her consent tricking her into allocating resources to the “mothers” offspring.
One of the links I posted suggests there is evidence that a woman does get something out of pregnancy.
[quote]
And the abortion issue is essentially whether the host, who does not agree to the terms of such a relationship has the right to eject a freeloader from her table, with the knowledge that the freeloader will starve to death if she does. [/quote]
Ya, the host does agree to the terms 99.99% of the time. She helped seat that “parasite” at her table. [/quote]
He likes to split those hairs. So from now on we will assume that most living things are parasites. Which eliminates that term from being a point of argument.