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Scientists ‘Breed’ Two Male Mice to Create ‘Gayby’ Mouse

&NewLine;<p>Of all the issues in the world waiting for solution-oriented scientific research&comma; Japanese scientists chose to work on something that defies nature and raises ethical questions – create a <em>gayby<&sol;em>&comma; a baby without any female cells involved in its creation&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The research has raised some ethical questions and concerns&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>On March 8&comma; at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing in London &lpar;UK&rpar;&comma; Katsuhiko Hayashi of Japan&&num;8217&semi;s Kyushu University announced the first case of the development of mammal oocytes exclusively from male cells&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Oocytes&comma; commonly called eggs&comma; are naturally produced in females only&comma; and when combined with sperm cells&comma; which are produced in males&comma; they develop into embryos&period; The egg cell has only X chromosomes as opposed to the sperm cell&comma; which has one X and one Y chromosome&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>To achieve the production of an egg from male cells&comma; skin cells from two male mice &lpar;referred to as <em>biological fathers<&sol;em>&rpar; were taken and passed through a number of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;intricate steps” to edit out the Y chromosome from each and create a single cell with both X chromosomes&period; The egg cell thus created was fertilized with regular male mice sperm and implanted into female mice where they could grow into babies&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Creating a biological offspring between same-sex couples has been a scientific and political fetish of the left&period; After failing to achieve actual male pregnancy – for obvious reasons – liberals attempted to change the definition of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;man” so as to include &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;trans-men&comma;” that is&comma; biological women who identify as men&period; A number of liberals have since claimed that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;men” can get pregnant&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The new approach to male pregnancy is directed at getting around the obstacle of egg production in male reproductive organs – a biological impossibility&period; Thus&comma; the new approach to achieving the goal is creating a male egg from non-sex cells&period; Experimentation on this approach goes back to at least 2016&comma; when a team of British researchers managed to conceive baby mice without fertilizing an egg cell with sperm&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>At this stage&comma; Hayashi’s research remains a proof-of-concept experiment on mice and not published&comma; peer-reviewed research authenticated by other scientists working independently&period; Hayashi predicts his technique can lead to the ability to create such male eggs in humans within the next decade&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><em>The Guardian<&sol;em> reported that other scientists disagree and regard Hayashi’s prediction as too optimistic given that scientists yet have to make viable lab-grown eggs from human female cells and it’s easier to transform mice cells into egg cells than doing the same in humans&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The technique of male egg development in the lab for possible future application in humans is seen by some scientists as a positive step toward treating some cases of infertility in humans&comma; such as females unable to produce viable eggs&comma; but also for having single-parent embryos&period; The catch here is that to give birth to the baby&comma; the embryo still needs to be planted in a female since only females have a uterus and can actually carry and deliver a baby&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Wesley J&period; Smith opined in <em>National Review <&sol;em>that such dual-edged technologies using biological manipulation for reproduction are not free of risks for the babies&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>On the ethical side&comma; it would involve repeated stillbirths and abortions to improve the technique&period; Then there is the question of surrogacy since the baby has to be carried and delivered by a mother&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><em>It would also require surrogate mothers or artificial gestation chambers to bring the babies to term&comma; which would pose other ethical issues&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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