Franken-fathers

It's much too late for Halloween, but one can't help and think of a tinkering mad-scientist when coming across this story.

Despite what the headline in The Sun suggests about womb transplants, no, daddies cannot become mommies - ever. That claim goes against science, feminism, and everything God ever intended for creation. 

The article quotes Richard Paulson, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. He claims that "eight children had already been born to women after [womb] transplants." For some reason, Paulson thinks it's only natural to extend this procedure to men.

The report says, during a meeting in San Antonio, Texas, Paulson claimed: "There’s plenty of room to put a uterus in there. Men and women have the same blood vessels.”

The statement holds some truth, I suppose, in that men and women share a number of biological characteristics, mechanically speaking (head, and shoulders, knees, and toes, for example). On the counter side, we also have a significant number of differences, especially those pesky chromosomes, always getting in the way with all their inconvenient, sex-specific genetic material.

At least, for now, such operations are more science-fiction than science-fact. In their present form, they may even prove to be too risky for consideration:

[C]ritics said transgender women may want to think of safer options first — such as using a surrogate. Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at Oxford University, said the safety of the baby should be the priority.

Safety should certainly be a chief concern, for all the parties involved, but I don't believe that will prevent some ideologue with a scalpel and an agenda from trying to pervert the beauty of God's order, taking the dirt the Lord used to form man and molding that clay into some twisted Transhuman experiment.

The fact that such operations are so risky, specifically because of the conflicting biological factors, should give us pause, as a society, to put a stop to this endeavor. There's the spiritual side to this as well, don't be fooled. Genesis tells us that God made men and women in His image, so perverting that masterpiece, rejecting that gift, is more than just a slight offence to our Heavenly Father.

Here are a few thoughts, in general, about the concepts of surrogacy and parenthood from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other." 

2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children."168 "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."169


2378 A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged "right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception."170

This topic be approached through a Catholic lens, navigating with the teaching authority of the Magisterium and the truth and love of Christ.

Admittedly, off the top of the article, the paper banishes any notion of a natural birth even being possible, saying any child carried to term in such a Frankenstein-scenario would have to be delivered by cesarean. Regardless, doctors hope to go ahead with the very first womb transplant in the UK next year. Lord have mercy.