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jimfazio123 t1_jdp7pwe wrote

Except I said at the very beginning, including with my own analogy, that the nutrients come from elsewhere. I never said anything about it being an isolated system, because that would clearly be a) impossible just as a general rule but also b) against the concept of parasitism.. Clearly you have never read anything about parasites because "host" is the other half of the parasitic relationship. If I was a "dumbass Republican" I wouldn't be calling it a fetus, nor would I point out its parasitic nature, now would I? In this context it's purely scientific nomenclature, not political, for me to refer to parasite and host.

And do the hosts build the parasitic organism?

No. They supply the nutrients for the organism to build itself. It's not magic, it's biology.

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jimfazio123 t1_jdp8dvy wrote

Does the mother build the baby once it's out of the womb? It still requires nourishment, and historically that would be in the form of breast milk for many months. The baby continues to grow and develop outside the womb and doesn't reach maturity for decades, at what point is it being built by itself and not by something else?

The mother feeds the fetus through the placenta, a parasitic organism, same as she feeds the baby once it's born, same as the child feeds itself into adolescence and adulthood. She doesn't build it.

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