A man’s pregnancy may have sociological as well as biological implications, but the former are largely irrelevant and stated only as excuses by those who would shackle us with their own romanticized notions of the past. Notions that have at one time included: slavery, repression of women, forced religion and almost all other forms of bigoted evil. The simple truth is that the world changes, humans change and ideas change. In modern times it has been humanity that has been driving many of the changes, but that does not make them any less relevant or valid.
Those who decry such change generally shout slogans of ‘It’s not natural!’ somehow forgetting that very little if any of our modern world is ‘natural’. Is it natural to live in houses? I don’t see many growing in the forest. Is it natural to drive cars? Where was your car born? Is it natural to work on the 35th floor of a highrise where you move around digitally encoded sums of currency all day? A little closer to the issue at hand, is it normal to go to a hospital and have a doctor deliver the baby? I don’t see many ape doctors. Is it normal to have ultrasound scans performed regularly to check the health of the unborn? Is it normal for the mother to have painkillers during the delivery? A person would be hard-pressed to find something you could truly consider normal in modern society (how many animals in the wild use toilets or cook their food?). So what possible argument, other than technical feasibility, could there be against a man carrying a fetus to term?
Furthermore, there are times when ‘male incubators’ could be needed or desired. A young couple dearly wishes to have a child of their loins, but the mother can’t bear children. Why risk the psychological and potential legal complications of a surrogate mother, when the natural father can be surrogate?
As there are many women who would wish to keep pregnancy in the exclusive domain of the female, so too there are many men who think such an option is just ‘wrong’. Neither side of such arguments can state their position, however, without resorting to outdated stereotypes. There are numerous men around the world that would love the experience that has so far been reserved only for women. Such experience by the male half of the species could only succeed in forging a greater understanding between men and women.
So, yes, it may be unnatural, but what in the modern human world isn’t? In my mind, the potential benefits to families, providing one more option for those with difficulty having children, easily counters any perceived social stigmatism.
