Thursday, August 4, 2016

Men Could Become Pregnant!

            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

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