take me to the riot: Is foetus a human being or parasite?
I posted an article about abortion on tumblr, I got a very different and strange comment:
It’s not murder because murder only applies to human beings, and a foetus is not a human being. It is essentially a parasite.
I was thunderstruck when I read this comment. Foetus is not human being? Foetus is a parasite? I don’t think so. A foetus is just like a bud, waiting for blossoming, it is a flower, not anything else. If a bud is not a flower, how you tell the name of a new born child? Is it not a human being? Ridiculous!
But, I am professional at anthropology, I couldn’t talk more about it, but you know much more about it than me, then please tell me what do you think on it!
A foetus is not a human being by definition:
- foetus |ˈfētəs| noun (pl. foetuses): an unborn offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby more than eight weeks after conception.
- human being |hjuːmənˈbiːɪŋ| noun: a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.
It is also a parasite by definition:
- parasite |ˈparəˌsīt| noun: an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense.
A flower bud is not a flower. It is a potential flower. Just as a foetus is not a human being - it is a potential human being. A newborn child is a human being because it has been born and no longer resides within a host.
^
LAWYERED
This is a common case where everyone is wrong. It’s not a foetus untill week 9 of the pregnancy. It’s a zygote for the first 5 days then few other things before it gets to the feotus stage. And arguably a feotus is no more a human being than a caterpillar is a butterfly.
Its not a parasite either because “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.” If you’re going to class a fetus as a parasite, you could argue that the fetus is a parasite untill it grows up and moves out of home 16-20 years later, as children are a large expense.
Technically the relationship between a woman and the thing in her belly is one of Commensalism which is defined as “a relationship between two living organisms where one benefits and the other is not significantly harmed or helped,” which is the way most pregnancies are unless something goes wrong.
