re: #773 Coracle

And all of them are using it as a metaphor, right, not an actual biological taxonomic classification? They’re not saying if someone could write a paper called “Growth rate in tumors”, and have it be about fetal development, right?

You clearly understand what the hell I mean. There’s lots of things in biology that metaphorically resemble each other, but that doesn’t mean they actually are each other. A fetus is not a parasite, or a tumor, and it would only be referred to as such in biology as an analogous argument— just as you could describe a tumor as a parasite, but only in analogy.

Look, if the term is being used to shock, as some sort of tactic in communication, my only objection is that I think it’s ineffective and it personally turns me off. But it’s not an accurate description. That having a baby is an enormous strain on a woman and potentially deadly to her is true— a fetus is much more harmful to a woman than most parasites. Most parasites are co-evolved to do as little damage as possible to their hosts. Fetuses are actually in a Darwinian competition with females to try to get as much nutrient, as much from them as possible because, genetically, the fetus doesn’t ‘care’ about long-term survival of the woman. The woman’s body fights back because its genetics make it favor its long term health so that it can have more children down the road.

Calling it parasitism both trivializes or ignores the emotional attitude that humans often, if not always, have towards the fetus, and the extent of a burden it is to the mother. It is far more onerous than parasitism.