In the reel
life, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a male scientist in the movie Junior, used
hormones and invitro fertilization to become pregnant. In the animal life, male
seahorses become pregnant.
In the human
life, the man Thomas Beatie, in the year 2008, became pregnant to deliver his
first child. Thomas Beatie, however, is a transgender man, who retained the
sexual organs of the gender of his birth to have babies.1
Yes,
transgender men could become pregnant and have babies!
IS MALE PREGNANCY
POSSIBLE?
Could 100% normal
men (not transgenders) become pregnant?
Scientists posit
the possibility of male pregnancy because of the possibility of uterus
transplantation. An article in The New York Times quotes Dr. Rebecca Flyckt, an
obstetrician-gynecologist and expert in reproductive endocrinology to explain
the theoretical possibility of male pregnancy, “Although theoretically this
would be possible, it would be a huge surgical and endocrinologic undertaking
and involve not just the creation of a vagina but also surgical reconstruction
of the whole pelvis by someone skilled in transgender surgery. After this
procedure and the grafting of a donor uterus, a complex hormone regimen would
be required to support a pregnancy prior to and after embryo transfer (although
this could be done, as we provide similar hormone regimens to menopausal women
to support a pregnancy). The interesting thing is that these embryos would be
created using the patient’s sperm (rather than eggs as in our protocol) and a
partner or donor’s eggs. This sperm would have had to be frozen prior to their
transgender surgery, which people are doing more routinely now.
I did
anticipate that there would be interest in this application of uterine
transplant from the Trans community; however, our protocol is limited at this
time to women without a functioning uterus.”2
An article titled
“Scientists are Now Attempting to Figure Out How to Get Men Pregnant” in Lifenews.com
presents the risky nature of male pregnancies, “According to Scientific American,
male patients would require even more “extreme steps” to carry a child. Here’s
more from the report:
Here is how
it could work: First, a patient would likely need castration surgery and high
doses of exogenous hormones because high levels of male sex hormones, called
androgens, could threaten pregnancy. (Although hormone treatments can be
powerful, patients would likely need to be castrated because the therapy might
not be enough to maintain the pregnancy among patients with testes.) The
patient would also need surgery to create a “neovagina” that would be connected
to the transplant uterus, to shed menses and give doctors access to the uterus
for follow-up care.
For some
scientists, the procedures involved in making males pregnant are too risky.
Baylor University transplant surgeon Dr. Giuliano Testa called the possibility
a “feat of unknown proportions.” He told the science news outlet that he would
never consider doing the procedure.”3
Professor
of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, Lee Silver, thinks that reproductive
biologists would, in the future, figure out a way to ensure male pregnancies through
abdominal pregnancy, which is, at the moment, a high risk endeavor, “So is male
pregnancy possible? Probably yes. Is male pregnancy safe? No, not at the
present time.
But at some
point in the future, it’s likely that reproductive biologists will figure out
how to direct the growth of the placenta away from vulnerable abdominal organs
and onto an easily detachable, but blood-rich, surface for growth. And then,
pregnancy will be possible for men who are 100% men, although it's certainly
not something that I would want to do.” 4
This then
is the writing on the wall as far as male pregnancies are concerned. Uterine
transplants and abdominal pregnancy, along with other possibilities, would be
explored by the scientific community to enable the possibility of risk free male
pregnancies in the future.
THE BIOETHICS OF MALE
PREGNANCIES
Male
pregnancy is predicted to be a very expensive procedure, which could cost
approximately US$ 1 million. From the standpoint of ethics, the class issue
will be raised, for male pregnancies would only be afforded by the wealthy
class of people. 5
Another
ethical concern deals with the rationale behind pouring millions of dollars into
researching male pregnancies when there are more pressing needs that could do
better with greater funding. Healing is desperately needed for many diseases
such as cancers and genetic illnesses like Autism and Alzheimer's disease.
Wesley J. Smith,
award winning author, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on
Human Exceptionalism, and a consultant to the Patients Rights Council, condemns
male pregnancies. He was also named as one of America’s premier expert thinkers
in bioengineering by the National Journal and these are his very words, “Biologically
male mothers would be unethical and immoral from every angle one looks at the
issue; whether the potential fatal harm to the man, treating new life as a mere
experiment, and the obliteration of the concept of societal norms.”6
WHY DO WE NEED MALE
PREGNANCIES?
In other words, “Why
is mankind not satisfied with female pregnancies?”
Outside of
career driven women driving their docile husbands (pardon the pun) to become
pregnant, here are a few apparent reasons for male pregnancies.
Impossible Is Nothing
Legendary boxer
Muhammad Ali is credited to have uttered the famous Adidas slogan, “impossible
is nothing,” “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find
it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power
they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible
is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is
temporary. Impossible is nothing.” Man is in a constant state of overcoming
barriers – small and large.
If male
pregnancies are deemed impossible now, the scientific community would consider
overcoming this impossibility as a landmark conquest of impossibility.
Need For Transgender
Women
If uterine
transplants are successful enough for men to become pregnant and deliver
safely, then Genetic literacy project posits transgender women (born as a male)
as the first possible clientele for male pregnancies, “As for who will be the
first candidates after the infertile women who already are benefiting from this
experimental procedure, we could imagine a man opting to do it in the name of
science, similar to Schwartezenegger’s character. On the other hand, it seems
logical that transgender women will constitute a bigger market.
“I’d bet
just about every transgender person who is female will want to do it, if it
were covered by insurance,” remarked Christine McGinn M.D., a plastic surgeon
on New Hope, Pennsylvania who is consulting on a film about the early days of
sex reassignment surgery. “Human drive to be a mother for a woman is a very
serious thing,” she added. “Transgender women are no different.””7
Need To Rebel Against
God
Joseph
Fletcher, a pioneer in bioethics, who anticipated male pregnancies way back in 1988,
in his work The Ethics of Genetic Control, exemplified mankind’s rebellion
against God. An article in the National
Review magazine says, “Joseph Fletcher–one of the bioethics movement’s founding
fathers, who also gave us situational ethics–sighed ecstatically at the
prospect of men giving birth. From page 45 of his 1988 book The Ethics of
Genetic Control:
[T]ransplant
or replacement medicine foresees the day, after the automatic rejection of
alien tissue is overcome, when a uterus can be implanted in a human male’s
body—his abdomen has spaces—and gestation started by artificial fertilization
and egg transfer.
Hypogonadism
could be used to stimulate milk from the man’s rudimentary breasts—men too have
mammary glands. If surgery could not
construct a cervical canal the delivery could be effected by a Caesarean
section and the male or transsexualized mother could nurse his own baby.
Fletcher was at war with the natural and longed for the day when man could
manipulate the created (or evolved) order into our own image.”8
Man, who does
not submit to God, possesses an innate desire to rebel against God and HIS
creational intent. Male pregnancies are another manifestation of man’s rebellion
against God.
Consider God’s
creational intent. Both man and woman are appropriately created by God to produce
life. When man intends to violate God’s creational intent, especially within
the context of male pregnancies, he ought to dangerously and artificially alter man’s body i.e.
import a foreign uterus into the man’s body, artificially fertilizing the sperm
and the egg and so on.
When we
think about it, there is no need for male pregnancies when adoption is always a
pragmatic option. Why then do we interfere with God’s marvelous creation? It’s
because that’s who we are and that’s who we will be as long as we rebel and do
not submit to God to enjoy HIS marvelous creation. Come, Lord Jesus.
Endnotes:
Websites cited were last accessed on 4th August,
2016.
1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019579/Worlds-pregnant-man-Thomas-Beatie-unveils-muscular-body-3-babies.html
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/insider/will-uterine-transplants-make-male-pregnancy-possible.html?_r=0
3 http://www.lifenews.com/2016/06/20/scientists-are-now-attempting-to-figure-out-how-to-get-men-pregnant/
4 http://www.science20.com/challenging_nature/a_real_pregnant_man_almost_certainly_possible_but_it_might_kill_him
5 http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/male-pregnancy-a-real-possibility/11726
6 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/427270/coming-next-men-mothers-wesley-j-smith
7 https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/01/14/male-pregnancy-its-not-just-for-seahorses-anymore/
8 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/427270/coming-next-men-mothers-wesley-j-smith
No comments:
Post a Comment