Scientists have recently discovered a method of creating children without the egg of a female. The research is reported on in more detail
here, but as I understand it the technique involves taking a normal cell and removing half of its chromosomes so that it can fuse with a sperm cell to start the process of growing a baby. This technique has been used with mice, producing mice that are apparently as healthy as any other set of mice.
I should note that females are still needed to be surrogates for the embryos. They haven't been taken completely out of the equation.
If this breakthrough translates to humans as well, it would have a number of implications, especially in curing female infertility...however, what jumped out to me is that it would allow two men to have biological children together, with the children inheriting the traits of both men. I think it's interesting because I believe that the distinctions between genders will become less important and more fluidic as time goes on, and a discovery like this has the potential to virtually rewrite the need to have a man and a woman to reproduce, which is what has always made gender distinctions so culturally important. Furthermore, it would grant non-traditional couples the ability to have offspring which each other, something I think is a fundamental desire of most couples.
It's the cultural and sociological implications that interest me, but what are your thoughts on the discover and any potential implications?
