What would it mean to have your own 'gay'by?
What life has taught me, is that anything is possible and with science, people's opinions on moral subjects are moving forward and away from the past at an alarmingly fast rate. For so long what people thought would always be impossible becomes possible. Reproduction in my opinion should be available to everyone. Everybody should be given the chance to have this chance to have children of their own. Hearing this news as a queer person though has been unexpected and happy and wonderful all at once. Knowing that I have this opportunity to be able to have this, I'm sure many people would never have even thought it possible. It has been one of the many confirmations for me of how wrong people can be when they are limited by ignorance and prejudice.
Their reasoning mainly consists behind this argument; "This relationship is wrong because you cannot have your own children. Therefore, it is unnatural." This is what I keep hearing. Now another seemingly impossible thing has become possible. Further discrediting all the haters.
For many LGBTQ+ peoples, the thoughts of having their own genetically biological children together with a same sex partner is a long abandoned dream. Something that might be only dreamed of in fanfiction or fantasy novels, but never in real life, and never even brought up really in mainstream media. It may very soon in the not too distant future become a reality though.
Imagine the future where your darling sweetiepie looks like you and your partner?
This is because of a process called in vitro gametogenesis (also known as IVG) having been in the making for 20 plus years; which has finally born fruit because of Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka’s noble prize winning work on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and Japan’s Kyoto University researchers scientific work on a lesbian mouse couple.
The scientific breakthrough of IVG shows that egg and sperm, usually only produced in ovaries and testes; could very soon be made from any cell from any part of the human body (at the moment, muscle, liver or blood cells will be the most viable cells since they are iPS cells that can be developed into any kind of human cell) for creating these sex gametes (which are germ cells); and thus be used to create from a human man’s sperm, a viable egg, and from a human woman’s egg cell, a viable sperm; to then be fertilized with an already existing sperm or egg cell from their same sex partner, and thus make a biological child of their own.
At the moment, this process has not become readily available to the public yet, as it has not been tested in humans and only been successful so far in two female mice reproducing biological offspring (with a mice tail being turned into IPS cells and then gametes and then pups), and has raised various ethical and legal questions. This includes the possible health risks babies could end up having, religious aspects, whether it will decrease adoptions by same sex couples and so on.
Whilst this is still an option a bit away in the future from truly thinking about, there is no doubt in many people in society’s mind, especially gay parents who have adopted or have step children that they do not immensely love their children, regardless of being biologically theirs or not. The idea behind this is it would be nice to just have another option, to experience that ultimate experience of having a baby that is a little combination of both you and your lover.
IVG being successful for humans leads to endless reproductive possibilities, even women not needing men to create a baby. In this extraordinary world of firstly one parent biological babies being born to a same sex couple with the use of fertility treatments, test-tube babies, frozen eggs, surrogacy, sperm donors, then the process of mitochondrial replacement techniques which is otherwise known as three-parent babies coming along, and now finally IVG, there are so many new options for LGBTQ+ couples to have their own biological children.
A summarized explanation and detailed drawing of the IVG process.
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