The most famous man to be pregnant is Thomas Beatie who appeared on Oprah Winfrey show, a few years ago. But should men be allowed to be pregnant and bear children? This is as much a moral question as it is a practical one.
There are already too many babies on earth, and many will die today, even as you read this, because we do not have the resources, or concern, necessary to support their lives on earth. However, in certain situations, such as Beatie having no other means to have biological children with his wife, it should be his legal right to carry his own child to term. Beatie, having been born a woman, has a uterus. This makes it much more probable that the technology required can be utilized to help such couples achiever parenthood.
Yet, there must be limits. No one, such as the Octomom, should be lauded as hero for defying the natural laws of nature to conceive and bear crib loads of babies. It sets a horrendous example to others that suggests having babies is a good thing to do whether or not one has the resources, or the moral right, to bring children into a world where other children die daily, and tremendous uncertainty awaits anyone born into the twenty-first century.
People do not naturally fly, but few of us would choose to ground all aircraft. Nevertheless, if there were too many aircraft, and those aircraft threatened life on earth, we would certainly, as a group, curtail the number of aircraft we have. With seven billion humans on earth, many dying right now due to unequal distribution of resources, can it truly be considered moral for people to have any more offspring than the one required, one per man, and one per woman, it takes for each of us to replace each of ourselves? Beyond adoption, which should be simplified, and for those with genuine inability to have even one baby, the right thing to do becomes more complex.
Nature, aside for the rare and special circumstances of parthenogenesis, requires a contribution from both male and female for babies to be born. Also, in nature, most pregnancies end with an undetected spontaneous loss of the fetus. Many people do not even know of this fact, and by far more pregnant women lose their “pregnancy” without ever knowing they had conceived in the first place. The hormones, and the physiology of the human body, provides for men to contribute sperm and women to contribute a womb.
Hormonal changes in the body are essential for all factors to come together for a woman to have the greatest possible chance of a healthy pregnancy. Evolution dictates the the right hormones, at the right time, in the right environment, determine every detail of the health, life, and viability of the fetus.
Just because we can clone, or create human incubators, does not mean we should squander the resources to do so. It invites the possibility that those with wealth can create a Handmaiden’s Tale type of atmosphere, where underprivileged people serve as incubators for the ruling class. Just because we can perfect the technology to hormonally alter human bodies, have multiple births, and give humans the power to “improve” upon Nature does not mean we really can, and certainly not that we should.
Pride goeth before a fall. This means that when we have the arrogance to think we can improve on what has traditionally been considered the work of the Creator, and/or Creation, we are setting ourselves up for mass tragedy.
