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From: neal@denelcor.UUCP (Neal Weidenhofer)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Embryo a Parasite?  (metaphysical ?)
Message-ID: <364@denelcor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Mar-84 14:11:16 EST
Article-I.D.: denelcor.364
Posted: Thu Mar 22 14:11:16 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Mar-84 21:41:01 EST
References: <7053@watmath.UUCP> <1354@druxv.UUCP>, <492@pyuxn.UUCP>, <1936@cbscc.UUCP>
Organization: Denelcor, Aurora, CO
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>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a parasite is a *foriegn* organism that
>lives inside it's host and is also harmful to the normal bodily functions.

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines parasite as "...an organism
living in or on another oraginism in parasitism..."  No mention is made
of "foreign" or "harmful".  (The definition of parasitism includes the
words "usu[ally] injures"--but it doesn't take much stretching to see that
that applies to a fetus/embryo also.)

>If a person is infected with a parasite, there would be something wrong
>with that person if, instead of wanting it removed, they loved it and
>nurtured it.  Well, many women love those little embryos and go to great
>lengths not to hurt them, while others consider them a burden.  So are
>we then to determine whether or not the embryo is a parasite subjectively,
>based on the woman's point of view?  I think not.  A parasite is a parasite.
>It is not one because some people view it as such.

Au contraire, any reasonable definition of parasite is relative to the
host.

>			We can say that the tapeworm does not belong in
>our intestine.

From the tapeworm's point of view, it certainly does.

>		 But we cannot say that the human embryo does not belong
>in its mother's womb.

Those of us who believe in free choice would leave that decision to the
mother.

>							     There is nothing
>that is added to the embryo (except food and oxygen -- don't we all need it?)
>to make it more human as time goes on.

If that were true, we could do away with this whole discussion by placing
aborted fetuses in incubators and adopting them out.

>I would say that anyone has the right to remove anything they want from
>their body, but not when it results in the death of another human being.
>(Yes I will keep calling the fetus, zygote, embryo, whatever a human
>being until it is proved otherwise.)

Please stop begging the question--proof has nothing to do with it
until/unless we can come up with an accepatable definition of "human
being".  Incidentally, Webster's (op. cit.) doesn't come close to 
taking a position either way.

			Regards,
				Neal Weidenhofer
				Denelcor, Inc.
				!denelcor!neal