After my tragic experience of pregnancy and childbirth, I often think about how ridiculous the whole concept is. Why do we make babies from scratch, inside our bodies, the way that we do? It is extremely dangerous, especially for human beings, given all our pelvis/head issues. From a biologic standpoint, it’s not a good “strategy”. It doesn’t make much sense. Throughout human history, our babies have been dying, and killing us, and otherwise upending out lives and our families, in ways that wouldn’t happen if we could reproduce in a more sensible manner. Like birds do. (Although, my brother has kindly pointed out that sometimes even turtles need c-sections.)
Why mammals, why pregnancy? The answer is in the news, and it has nothing to do with talking to snakes or sampling forbidden fruit. It’s transposition of parasitic genomic elements containing progesterone binding sites. Thanks, jumping progesterone-activated nucleic acid sequence, for stumbling into positions that warped progesterone-producing, egg-having bodies into sometime homes for tiny living creatures. Thanks a lot.
Wrapped Up In Parentheses 