Man Pregnant with Thought... and Babies

Today's discussion focused on an article that hit the news on Wednesday about a pregnant man.  Thirty year-old Scott Moore is eight months pregnant with a baby boy.

Before you think this a sci-fi plot or the premise of a bad movie, you should know that Moore was born a woman, kept his female organs, and was inseminated by the sperm of a friend (not his husband, since he, too, was born a female).  He and his husband have two adopted children already, and they are thrilled with the news that they are the first gay couple to get pregnant.

Moore, however, is not the first man to get pregnant; so did Thomas Beatie.  Beatie was also born a female, but he legally changed his sex, underwent hormonal therapy, and married a woman.  Because his wife could not get pregnant, they decided that he could carry a baby.  The child was born to a mother and a father in June of last year.

This raises some interesting questions about parenthood, sexuality, and reproductive rights.  In our discussion, we addressed the ethics and politics of men having babies, and we even ventured to understand why so many fertility clinics, doctors, and regular ol' people might take issue with stories like these.  We considered the health and upbringing of the children, as well as the power of tradition and shared cultural bigotries (if such things exist).  We also wondered how feminists might feel about this story - that something so female can be shared with (or taken by) men.  (As a feminist, though, I am not threatened.  The men in these stories were born female.  They were born with uteri, and they are using them.  This is not the same thing as males trying to make women obsolete or denying them reproductive choice/ability/power by getting pregnant themselves.)

While some might be able to shrug off such events since Moore and Beatie still have xx chromosomes, it is undeniable that most of us have some kind of gut, emotional reaction as we read their stories and look at their pictures.  Whether that emotion is discomfort, joy, anger, acceptance, fear, disbelief, or amusement is based on our individual upbringings, educations, experiences, and values.  One thing seems for sure, though, (and I know that that statement invites its own debate) - if that emotion is not positive, then we might need to take a moment and find the roots of our emotions and question them, get to the heart of why we feel the way we do, and perhaps change ourselves as the world changes around us.