Mr. Mom
The Ham Sap Gwailo
*****
Friday, February 26, 1999
Mr. Mom just around corner?
Medical community questions the wisdom of men having babies
By CATHY STAPELLS -- Toronto Sun
Mr. Mom may be closer to reality than you think.
Just like in the 1994 movie Junior, featuring a pregnant Arnold
Schwarzenegger, a top British fertility expert says it is possible for
men to bear children due to advances in medical technology.
British professor Robert Winston, a leader in reproductive technology,
tells The Sunday Times that doctors could use modern fertility
techniques to implant an embryo in a man's abdomen, where it would be
carried to term and then delivered by Caesarian section.
There have been cases of women who have carried a fetus outside the womb
safely. However, these situations are extremely rare and dangerous.
"To deliberately embark on extra-uterine pregnancy is a very risky thing
to do both for the infant and the individual, whether male or female,"
says Dr. Patricia Baird, a geneticist and pediatrician who headed the
four-year Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies.
Someone will try it
Baird believes that because of the risk involved, it's an inappropriate
procedure.
But not impossible, agree medical experts, who don't believe male
pregnancy will happen anytime soon, especially in Canada.
"I can't see a lot of men wanting to bring a baby to term --
actually choosing to do it," says Moira McQueen, an ethics professor at
the University of Toronto.
"It's not an experience most men would want," agrees Dr. Cliff Librach,
director of the fertility program at Women's College Hospital. "Yet, I'm
sure someone in the world is going to try it, probably to get their name
in the paper."
As wild as it may seem, the idea isn't new.
"I mentioned it as a throwaway line at a conference in 1989 and
everyone went ballistic," says Dr. Margaret Somerville, founding
director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law in Montreal.
However, "it's awfully dangerous because of the risk of hemorrhage."
Also, necessary hormone treatments could result in the man developing
breasts and cause his testicles to shrink.
"Men can't handle a hangnail, let alone pregnancy," says Dr. David
Factor, a Toronto-based psychologist. "If men had periods, Demerol would
be an over-the-counter drug. And if they ever went into labour, they'd
have drive-in epidurals."
Margrit Eichler, a U of T professor of ethics on reproductive and
genetic technologies, quips: "If men were having children, we'd get good
maternity leaves."
But, more seriously, she questions the safety for the child.
"Many health problems need to be addressed. For example, when using
fertility drugs, a quarter of the pregnancies result in multiple births
and many of the children grow up to have health problems," says Eichler.
"Do we want to adopt technology which will create these problems?"
It also remains to be seen how well the community would accept the
reality of men bearing children. Mothers working full-time outside the
home have already blurred traditional gender responsibilities.
Are we ready for the ultimate role reversal?
"How would society handle single men having babies? Look at today's
househusbands. There's still a stigma, it's not seen as logical," says U
of T's McQueen. "While many men are good fathers, they're not
conditioned to 24-hour-a-day involvement."
Factor adds: "Bearing children is the one distinguishing feature that
sets man and woman apart.
"Also, what about the child? Growing up knowing it was his father who
gave birth to him and not his mother. What are the ramifications of
that?"
Swirling around the whole discussion of modern fertility technology,
such as in vitro fertilization and cloning, is the question of whether
just because science can do something, does it mean it should be done?
The answers are varied. "For what reason is it being done? Is it valid?
Would it be harmful to either the parent or the child? If a male wants
the experience or the woman has an illness and can't conceive, these
wouldn't be improper reasons to do it," suggests John Robertson, a
professor at the University of Texas' school of law and co-chair of the
ethics committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.
'Impossible in nature'
"There's no barrier to the basic biology. You'd have to have
evidence it works. The arguments for cloning are strong as long as it
works," he says.
Others caution about moving too fast with technology we don't fully
understand.
"We're moving to things that are impossible in nature. It's not just
repairing something gone wrong, such as unblocking a fallopian tube,"
says Somerville.
"It's only in the last five to 10 years we've had the power to do
these things, but we're going off the deep end into mind-altering
capabilities," she cautions. "We must maintain what it means to be
human."
Factor questions the moral, social and ethical actions of the
scientific community. "I don't know if it's right or wrong, but if
science can do it, science will.
"Science doesn't deal with social issues ... in a sense, they don't
have a conscience."
Yet, potentially, the treatment could help couples where the woman is
unable to have a child, as well as homosexual couples who would like to
have children.
"We'll cross that bridge if and when it ever becomes reality," says John
Fisher, of Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere.
*****
whatever will they think of next? Penguins displaying signs of institutionalised
prostitution?
--
The Ham Sap Gwailo
icq 8292186
----
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's
too dark to read.
Groucho Marx