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Most women will never have an abortion, or even consider one.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Strictly speaking, a symbiotic relationship in one of mutual benefit. How does a fetus benefit a pregnant woman?

Also strictly speaking, KIKI is correct: Women do NOT have equal rights granted by the Constitution. The USA is pretty regressive about that.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
"A fetus does not harm its host ..." A pregnancy and birth are more risky (morbidity and mortality - toxemia, isolated high blood pressure, diabetes, infection, hemorrhage, severe depression etc) than an abortion, an abortion is more risky than not being pregnant at all. In the short term, pregnancy and birth are statistically far more likely to cause harm or death to the mother than either abortion or not becoming pregnant at all. And while a single pregnancy in young adulthood is associated with a slightly decreased risk of breast cancer (a very specific set of circumstances), pregnancy at any age is associated with a large increased risk of autoimmune disease. It's hard to make the case that pregnancy and birth are beneficial to the mother or even merely benign, and easier to make the case that they're risky.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

BTW - there's an interesting study that shows that tapeworms reduce the statistical risk of asthma by 'training' the immune system. Does that reduce their status as a parasite in your mind?

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Well, I'm just too lazy to go look up your definition to see what else it might say. But nowhere does it say separate species. And it says that 'depending on the definition used, as many as half of all animals have at least one parasitic phase in their life cycles'. I'm guessing that is the placental sort of animals (non-egg laying) which have a parasitic phase. And in your first post you claim that parasites are deadly to the host - "often killing it" is how you put it. Whereas your second post allows for parasites that don't kill their hosts, calling them 'extremely successful'.

Just saying I don't find your definition in your reference post, but I see how mine could fit.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
What. The. Hell?

I'll stab anyone who tries to take that one away from me in the gonads. And I don't even vote, it's the damn principle of the thing.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Where did the "rights" of slaves come from to be free? Where did women's "right" to vote come from? Where do animal "rights" come from? Where did worker's "rights" come from? Where did the "rights" of the accused come from?

The exercise of power, and ONLY the exercise of power.

We have our ideals, and in our ideals we would like to be fair (to people like us) and the framing of that "fairness" is what we like to call "rights", and we enshrine it as some sort of "natural" or "god-given" thing. But our ideals are not the real world they are simply our ideals, and those who hold power don't give it up willingly.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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What a fracking JOKE! It doesn't even need saying, but I will; what about rape, which doesn't even permit abortion in many states? Wake up, Raptor, you're being even more thick than usual.

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Genius, I stated - If you've made the decision to have sex, you've made the decision to deal w/ the consequences.

Unless you've decided to get raped... then I fail to see where your comment even warrants a response.

Name 1 state which doesn't allow abortions for rape victims.

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Instead, they just decide to redefine "rape"...

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I don't mean this in a snarky way at all, Siggy, but has this epiphany changed your viewpoint of the Second Amendment ?

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I don't necessarily mean in the idiotic ways we exercise it currently, but rather in the principle and concept behind it ?
Cause I'm curious to know - although as both of us are well aware, there are many ways to exercise power other than via weapons, indeed - so it's just simple curiosity rather than incentive to debate, in this case.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
MAGONS: FYI "parasite" applies to a lot more than separate species. As my hubby pointed out, there are "parasitic" capacitances which rob a circuit of power; "parasite" is also used in an economic sense.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Then women might as well be mules, or cows, or goats, to be bred at will. Because once they are stuffed by whatever means, they no longer matter as free humans.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
In biology, as I understand it, "parasite" refers to a relationship, and as stated above, many species go through various relationships during a life cycle. The term "parasite" in general conversation has taken on a pejorative connotation, but it's not intrinsic to the word. The word is a description of a relationship. Biologically, of course the fetus is parasitic upon the mother for some time during its development. That's a valid and accurate description of what goes on. Doesn't really mean jack as to what the right thing to do about it is.

For me, people have jurisdiction over what goes on inside their bodies. Period. It just so happens that pregnancy is unique in that another life is growing inside a person's body, and therefore that person has jurisdiction over that life until such time as that developing life is viable as an individual person. Until such time, it is functionally, biologically parasitic upon the mother. I would argue that legally it is not "a" person. The body of the mother can spontaneously reject the life growing inside her, and frequently does, or she can, through the exercise of her will and choice, reject the life growing inside her.

This decision has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on her likelihood to commit murder. It doesn't make her dangerous, nor does it destroy her understanding of right and wrong. Sorry folks, but it's a unique circumstance.

And women have been aborting fetuses since the dawn of our species. If it's genocide and eugenics, why doesn't the Bible, f'rinstance, say anything about it? The Bible can be quite explicit about what it wants to abominate and what it don't, and it don't say nothing explicit about abortion. Gays, check. Pork, check. Not loving your enemy as yourself, check. But abortion? Crickets. Funny.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred to organisms with lifestages that went beyond one host (e.g. Taenia solium), which are now called macroparasites (typically protozoa and helminths). Parasites can now also refer to microparasites, which are typically smaller, such as viruses and bacteria and can be directly transmitted between hosts of one species.

Unlike predators, parasites are generally much smaller than their host, although both are special cases of consumer-resource interactions.[1] Parasite show a high degree of specialization for their mode of life, and reproduce at a faster rate than their hosts. Classic examples of parasitism include interactions between vertebrate hosts and diverse animals such as tapeworms, flukes, the Plasmodium species, and fleas.

Parasitism is differentiated from the parasitoid relationship, though not sharply, by the fact that parasitoids generally kill or sterilise their hosts. Parasitoidy occurs in about as many classes of organism as parasitism does.

The harm and benefit in parasitic interactions concern the biological fitness of the organisms involved. Parasites reduce host fitness in many ways, ranging from general or specialized pathology (such as parasitic castration), impairment of secondary sex characteristics, to the modification of host behaviour. Parasites increase their fitness by exploiting hosts for resources necessary for the parasite's survival: (i.e. food, water, heat, habitat, and dispersal).

Although the concept of parasitism applies unambiguously to many cases in nature, it is best considered part of a continuum of types of interactions between species, rather than an exclusive category. Particular interactions between species may satisfy some but not all parts of the definition. In many cases, it is difficult to demonstrate that the host is harmed. In others, there may be no apparent specialization on the part of the parasite, or the interaction between the organisms may be short-lived. In medicine, only eukaryotic organisms are considered parasites, with the exclusion of bacteria and viruses. Some branches of biology, however, regard members of these groups as parasitic

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