Analytical Response to Male Pregnancy
Male Pregnancy by Dick Teresi and Kathleen McAuliffe support that the technology and the demand for male pregnancy will be possible in the future. They specifically state that, "Someday a man will have a baby". They have written this article in an attempt to show why they believe this will one day become accepted and widely practiced. However, I disagree with Teresi and McAuliffe. I feel male pregnancy will never be freely practiced or accepted by any means.
Teresi and McAuliffe start out their article by explaining what their general idea is for male pregnancy to occur. They state, "What we're talking about is implanting an embryo into a man's abdominal cavity, where the fetus would take nourishment, grow to term, and be delivered by an operation similar to a cesarean section. Already, this idea seems illogical to me. As a result of a man being pregnant, there must be a cesarean section to remove the baby. Even for women, this is a risk doctors prefer to avoid if possible. It puts the mother at a much greater risk of injury or death as well as the baby. Going to great lengths to make a man attempt to do something that has a high risk seems foolish when the same results can be achieved naturally with a much lower risk.
Slightly further into the article Teresi and McAuliffe discuss how a researcher, Dr. Cecil Jacobsen, injected a fertilized egg of a female baboon into the abdominal cavity of a male baboon. He then states that "with very moderate chemical support, the male baboon was able to carry the pregnancy toward term". Again this goes back to the fact that women can go through the process of child birth natural in most cases. However, for a male to car...
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...erring to why they would not want to carry a baby in the summer but any other time is okay. It is not just themselves they are affecting if the operation and procedure is a success, it is also the child who will have to grow up in a society where everyone else's mother is a female, but his mother is dad also.
Overall, I felt Teresi and McAuliffe's arguments for pursuing the technology of male pregnancies is not strong enough to actually do further research in the area. I feel that females are biologically established for birth where men's bodies naturally can not give birth. It seems illogical to try to change a system that has worked so well for so many years. If there is a technology dealing with birth that should be researched it should be increasing the safety of it, not a step backwards since the abdomen is a much more dangerous and illogical way.
One popular objection is: if it is immoral to deprive someone of a future, or a “future-like-ours”, then it is immoral to deprive a sperm or egg of a “future-like-ours”. Because it is immoral to deprive someone of a future, one must conclude that it is immoral to deprive a sperm or egg of a “future-like-ours”. This objection is in reference to different modes of contraception, such as condoms and birth control. Nevertheless, the biggest problem with Marquis’ argument that allowed for this objection was its indecisiveness and improbability to draw a definitive line. Marquis criticized the pro-lifers and pro-choicers for being unable to have a definitive definition and made the same mistake in his own argument. One could object to his argument by merely questioning where the decision would end; are we to believe that one is depriving a sperm or an egg a future when we use contraception? Another important note is the idea that a “future-like-ours” is even an even more ambiguous term than a “person” or “human being”. It is impossible for the average individual to know which of his sperm or her eggs carries a genetic abnormality that may cause their child to not have a
"This is the heart of our struggle over abortion, for it is a struggle between gods." said United Methodist pastor Reverend Marc Rogers. "The worship of this false god, the god of abstraction, is killing us literally - - killing not only unborn children, but killing our nation and our church." The FIGO Committee for the Study of Ethical Aspects for Human Reproduction does not agree with this view. "Selective reduction of a multiple pregnancy is not an abortion procedure because the intention is that the pregnancy continues," says the Committee. In many cases, if no fetuses are aborted, all of the fetuses will die. A couple that has had their first success at getting pregnant after a long time of infertility, whether by in vetro fertilization or through sex, is not guaranteed to have a second chance at having children. Often, a fetus in the womb will contract disease that could potentially spread to the others, also causing risk for failure. Using selective reduction to increase the chances of having any children at all instead of no children should not be looked down upon by anyone.
A gynaecologist can easily perform an ultrasound and tell parents what gender to expect their child to be. Reasonably, parents have the choice to learn the gender or to keep it a surprise. However, For parents to know they are expecting a daughter by chance or for them to choose that they want a daughter are two different cases. There are a variety of methods that allow parents to choose the gender of their child. In some cases, there may be fear of passing down a sex-linked genetic disease and so a certain gender may be preferred to protect the child’s health. However, a contentious issue is whether or not gender selection for non-medical reasons is ethically defensible. There are three positions that one could take: gender selection can never, sometimes, or always be ethically defended. In this paper, I intend to argue that gender selection is always permissible.
With new reproductive technology such as preserving the fetus it must be assumed that the fetus will survive. There is a very great chance that fetuses will not survive outside the body of the natural mother. The chance for survival has risen over the years but is still at about a twenty percent chance of survival. For this new technology to be very successful the chance of survival would have to be much higher.
Gender selection through prenatal diagnosis and abortion has existed since the 1970s. More recently, pre-implantation sexing of embryos for transfer has been developed. Both prenatal and pre-implantation methods of gender selection are seen as horrible unethical and impractical because they require abortion or a costly, intrusive cycle of in vitro fertilization and embryo discard (Hill et al. 438). Through this process if an embryo turns out to be...
This brings us to the scientific aspect of the controversy. The interminable question surrounding the controversy is this: When does a baby actually become a baby? A female’s ovum (egg) and a male’s sperm are both clearly alive. They are living organisms ready to be joined as one to form a baby. It is pointed out, however, that women release a few hundred eggs in a lifetime (Religious Tolerance). Almost all of these eggs are destined to die and be ejected from the body. Little thought is given to these hundreds of deaths. The same idea goes for the sperm. Hundreds of million of male sperm are liberated during a typical sexual encounter—an adequate number to theoretically double the earth’s population in a week or two if each were used to fertilize a separate ovum (Religious Tolerance). Again, little consideration is given to these deaths. Yet, a public consensus exists that they are not yet human persons.
There is an undeniable truth, in today’s world, that technology has changed our lives and traditional beliefs that most of people have had difficulty in getting used to that. One of the most questionable changes the technology has given rise to is recently gender selection. It’s been argued for so long whether it is ethical and its possible effects upon societies. Some say it is unethical on the grounds that we interfere with a God’s job that we don’t have a right upon it but with this saying, some important points of these issues are ignored such as reaching a goal which has been wished to come true or possible positive psychological impacts of this opportunity on a family. It, actually, brings about a question in most of people’s mind that would you rather be a person who has never reached your goal which you’ve wished to come true most because some alleged authoritarians took this opportunity away from you ? Some say gender selection is not ethical but is taking right of reaching whatever was aimed by parents away really ethical ? Some people are really biased about sex selection by those alleged authoritarians who have power to inject their intentions to people and they have showed the possible dangers of this issue to the traditional habits as an excuse. They also cast the rest wishing this opportunity to be enacted out of their mind, shortly they ignore them. However, this opportunity should be permissible because of the cruciality in a family with respect to choosing the sex of their babies according to their own standard and happiness of achieving what has been wished to reach in families and taking advantage of this opportunity in a way of medical purposes.
...actually take the fetus out of the mother’s womb with surgical scissors and a suction device is placed through the opening of the brain so the head can collapse. The Supreme Court case in 2003 of Stenberg v Carhart in Nebraska did not allow partial-birth abortions and ruled that it was unconstitutional. Since then laws such as The Partial Birth Control Abortion Ban Act became in effect on 2003 by George W. Bush and it prohibited this horrendous act except in rare cases where it would be absolutely necessary to save the mother’s life. After that in 2007 in the Supreme Court case of Gonzales v Carhart, upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and reversed the Stenberg v Carhart ruling. Gonzales created the precedent that anyone who “delivers and kills a living fetus could be subject to legal consequences”, unless it was done to save the life of the mother ().
Furthermore, birth control has made a huge impact on society. Whether people view it as negative or positive it has allowed for change and sexual responsibility. Therefore, if eventually both male and female have the option to take or be injected with a form of birth control then who knows that revolutions that could bring forth.
"Reproductive Technologies." Bioethics for Students: How Do We Know What’s Right?, edited by Steven G. Post, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. Opposing Viewpoints in
Stating the obvious, no one can choose the gender they are born with. It is possible to change genders through extensive surgery once you are older, but you cannot choose how you are born. Maybe one day there will be the technology and science that provides that possibility, but today it does not exist. It is no new topic, but government mandated health care is something to be addressed. Though people’s opinions go back and forth and there is no leading side, many people have heard of the topic of government mandated birth control. The main argument in support of this is the question of why women should have to pay for something out of their control, while men do not.
found that almost fifty per cent of all women will have an abortion by the time they reach
An important scientific argument for IVF is that, by studying fertilization and early embryonic development outside the womb, scientists might learn more about how to prevent certain birth defects (1). This proves that IVF could actually make improvements in medical advances, especially in regards to prenatal care. This is just one example of how IVF can actually be beneficial to the community. The only times that babies are malformed or sick are when the mother puts more than one baby in her uterus. Multiple fetuses increase the chance of birth defects because they have a greater chance of preterm birth, which is associated with long-term health. The long-term illnesses are cerebral palsy, mental illness, and blindness (Reddy 1). With this in mind, having single births is very safe and those babies are still healthy today, just like Sarah and Maggie Marshall’s baby. Single births are also very highly recommended by medical personnel. Going back to the first test tube baby the Browns were expecting, and Steptoe (the doctor) thought that this baby would be a failure. When they did a cesarean on July 25, 1978, a beautiful baby girl was born at 5 pounds and 12 ounces. After the baby was born, the doctor recalled that
Dozens of couples in the United Kingdom are opting to have this done so they can give birth to free from disease
... who has access, and what restrictions, if any, should apply. Because of the costly treatment and failure for most insurance companies to grant coverage for infertility, many couples are not able to have their own children since this is something that has to be paid out of the pocket. Furthermore, even though there has been past controversial issues with the treatment using IVF, it is a safe procedure today—with some complications, such as twins being born—and with the scientific, medical, and technological advances that we have in the 21st century; people trust this method as safe and effective. Everybody deserves to have a family. And for some—IVF is the only solution next to adoption. The United States must recognize the degree in which this problem effects their citizens and see that with help of insurance coverage, lives can be changed and lives can be made.