Very recently, a team of scientists in China at the Naval Medical University in Shanghai tried to create a model to test the hypothesis that you could get a male rat to deliver babies. They published this paper and reported some success. It has created almost a predictable firestorm to the point where they’re thinking of retracting the paper.
What did they do? Something called heterosexual parabiosis. They took a male and a female rat and literally joined their blood circulation to get female hormones into the male bloodstream. Then they transplanted the uterus of the female rat into the male rat. They created a space, put it there, then they put in embryos transferred from the female that they had created in vitro. Lo and behold, the male with the transplanted uterus and the donated embryos gave birth to 10 rat cubs, and they seemed normal.
Whether we choose to do that and whether it’s right to let men reproduce are bigger issues that ought to go way beyond scientists. I think it’s time to form an international committee to start thinking about that kind of a question regarding limits on reproductive technology, giving advice, and guidelines. We need society to agree where we might go in terms of who can have a baby, under what circumstances, and with what medical assistance — not a review committee.
Source: Male Rat Was Made Pregnant and Had Pups. Result: Outrage
This guy, Art, has never heard of Martin Rothblatt and his maniacal refusal to accept “can’t”. Rothblatt is determined to do precisely this sort of xenotransplantion, to ‘enable’ autogynephilic narcissistic men to have babies. Misogynistic narcissists care not a whit about ethics – or truth.
As a Biology student in the 80’s I was dumbfounded at the way society hailed scientists working on IVF as heroes. How much of the obsession to have kids – and be perceived as a failure if you don’t – is social engineering? In a world where the biggest environmental problem was then, and still is, overpopulation (by selfish humans), why can’t we celebrate not having kids and encourage non-childbearing people to contributing something more valuable than simply more mouths to feed? To stop this obsession with abnormal reproduction we need to ‘follow the money’!!!