Reddit Reddit reviews The Position of Modern Science on the Beginning of Human Life

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2 Reddit comments about The Position of Modern Science on the Beginning of Human Life:

u/TheExplodingKitten · 3 pointsr/Abortiondebate

Well now you are completely changing your argument. I take it you have abandoned your defense of your OP.

An unborn child cannot be biologically categorised as a parasite. Prochoicers call it a parasite to degrade the unborn child. Killers have to degrade before they kill. It's the number one rule of killing. Jews weren't considered humans or germans in nazi Germany. At the time the propaganda was "They look like us act like us but they aren't us". They too, were called parasites


Whether you could categorise an unborn child as a parasite or not is actually kind of irrelevant. It would make your argument solely rely on the negative semantics we have of that word in the English language. That's not a strong argument. However I will indulge in some science:

  1. A parasite is an organism of one species that lives in or on an organism of another species and receives nourishment from the host.

  2. Parasites are invasive organism that come from an outside or external source. A fetus comes from an inside or internal source (ie fertilized egg)

  3. Parasites are generally harmful to the hosts, fetuses may make a pregnant woman experience adverse health effects, but not nearly to the same level that a parasite generally does.

  4. A parasite makes direct contact with the host's living tissues. A fetus lives in the placenta, fed by the umbilical cord, both of which are fetal tissue (ie the cells come from the baby).


  5. When a parasite invades a host, the host tissue will usually respond by encapsulating the parasite in order to cut it off from other surrounding tissue. In the case of a fetus, the mother’s tissue will create a lining tissue that connects, rather than cuts off contact with other tissues (placenta lining).


  6. Parasites usually elicit a surge of antibodies as an immunological response. With the fetus, however, a mother’s trophoblast (the shell of cells surrounding the embryo) will naturally block these antibodies so as not to reject the fetus. This reaction is only found in the embryo-mother relationship.

  7. A parasite will generally weaken the cellular reproductive capacity of the host.For a fetus, the effect is the opposite.

  8. Parasites generally stay with the host for life, a fetus leaves upon birth.

  9. Parasitical relationships are mostly harmful and unnecessary to the host, generally damaging the host in a variety of ways. A newborn (fetus post-birth) is very healthy for the mother, bringing benefits of an emotional, cognitive and chemical nature.

  10. The most obvious one, a fetus is a human being in development. It will never become anything other than human. Even a first trimester fetus will have fully developed arms, legs, ears, facial features, sex organs and a functioning heart, as well as sufficient neurological development to feel pain. A parasite is not a human and never will be.

    sources:

    http://www.l4l.org/library/notparas.html

    https://books.google.nl/books?dq=Cheng,+T.C.,+General+Parasitology,+p.+7,+1973&hl=en&id=d4GQlYzode8C&lr=&oi=fnd&ots=l6EmR3PEvV&pg=PP1&sig=wr-51nFxVEYVcWvVnLhfGq8jVls&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Cheng%2C%20T.C.%2C%20General%20Parasitology%2C%20p.%207%2C%201973&f=false

    https://www.facebook.com/notes/i-am-pro-life/is-the-fetus-a-parasite/452615701428057/

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-embryo-as-a-transplant/

    https://www.amazon.com/Position-Modern-Science-Beginning-Human/dp/0937930024