What's the point of taking a male and a female mouse, surgically attaching them like Siamese twins -parabiosis-, connect the two circulatory systems to run the blood of the female into the male, castrate the male, transplanting a uterus into her bodyartificially impregnate the female, also insert embryos into the uterus of the male mouse and carry both pregnancies through to caesarean section for both?
It certainly does not serve the purpose of giving birth to male mice or male lambs or oxen or male specimens of other mammals. Instead, it serves the purpose of experimenting - to the great distress of these creatures - with the possibility of human male pregnancy.
This is the goal - and has been since the dawn of time: taking pregnancy, taking motherhood, finally being able to do without women except as providers of egg cells and 'pregnant blood', apparently a real elixir for the pregnant male. And it obviously serves to build a excellent business intended for trans people MtF or simply to any man who wants to experience pregnancy in order to autogynephilic fetishism.
The experiment was conducted in China by Rongjia Zhang and Yuhuan Liu, has not yet been peer-reviewed, and appears in preprint on the Biorxiv website. It is called A rat model of male pregnancy, Male pregnancy pattern in the rat. You could also simply call it Womb envythe sacred cup, the Grail of all time.
The study states among other things:
"We constructed a male rat pregnancy model with a four-step strategy: a parabiotic heterosexual pair was initially produced surgically joining a castrated male rat and a female rat. The uterus transplantation (UTx) was then performed on the male parabiont 8 weeks later. After recovery the embryos at the blastocyst stage were transplanted into the grafted uterus of the male parabiont and the native uterus of the female parabiont. Caesarean section was performed at embryonic day (ED) 21.5.
Parabiosis is an experimental model that can surgically link two animals and share their blood microenvironment through the anastomosis... to obtain the female-like microenvironment through blood exchange.. to observe the embryonic development in the uterus grafted in the male parabiont below exposure to pregnant blood.
The selected female rat was used for two different roles: as a uterus donor; as a female parabiont for heterosexual parabiosis surgery. Prior to parabiosis surgery the male's testicles, epididymis, right ventral prostate and seminal vesicles were removed.
A total of 842 embryos at the blastocyst stage were transferred to 46 heterosexual parabiotic couples at embryo day (ED) 4.5 (562 embryos transferred to female parabionts and 280 embryos transferred to male parabionts). At ED 18.5 a exploratory laparotomy to observe the development of the transferred embryos. We found that 169 (30.07%) embryos developed normally in native uteri of female parabionts at 18.5 ED, while only 27 (9.64%) embryos developed normally in grafted uteri of male parabionts.
We have therefore deduced that transplanted embryos can develop normally in uteri grafted with male parabionts only when the female parabionts conceive and provide exposure of the pregnant blood to the male parabionts.
We constructed a model of male pregnancy in the rat and found that transplanted blastocyst-stage embryos can develop to maturity in uteri grafted with male parabionts if the male parabionts are exposed to pregnant blood from female parabionts. The success rate of the whole experiment was very low, but 10 pups could be delivered by male parabionts. by caesarean section and developed into adulthood. In addition, we found two new phenomena in our model of male pregnancy in the rat.
Firstly, during caesarean section at ED 21.5, the following were observed abnormal stillbirths only in the grafted wombs of male parabionts. Considering that no abnormalities were found during laparotomy at ED 18.5, it was inferred that abnormal fetal death in male parabionts started late in embryonic development (approximately at ED 18.5-21.5). It remains unknown whether this phenomenon is peculiar to male pregnancy in mammals. Secondly, only embryos exposed to the pregnant blood of female parabionts can develop normally in male parabionts, suggesting that normal embryo development in male mammals relies on a mechanism that may be induced by exposure to pregnant blood rather than exposure to female blood.
For a part of the transgender movement and other programs for the creation of new family structures, male pregnancy is a a question of human rights. As stated in the Journal of Medical Ethics:
From the point of view of justice, there is themoral imperative to ensure equitable access to UTx [uterine transplantation].. Arguments against providing UTx to genetically XY [transgender] women that are unrelated to safety and efficacy should be carefully evaluated to address the potential discrimination against genetically XY women as a social group.
So a question of 'social justice' would legitimise this kind of research because it is considered absolutely It is unacceptable that a person who decides to make the transition from male to female - with cosmetic adaptations to her body, which in any case remains an XY body and can never be an XX body - should be denied the female experience of gestation, childbirth and motherhood.
While apparently there is no ethical problem with women being understood as providers of egg cells, wombs and even 'pregnant blood'.. In essence, freely parasitised female bodies by male bodies. It remains to be seen how and with which devices this continuous transfusion of female blood into a male body could be achieved.
Daily transfusions? Vampirization? Blood trading? Will needy women be able to think about getting pregnant in order to sell their surrogate pregnant blood, in addition to their eggs and uterus?
There is also the problem of having provided a severe suffering to defenceless animals without any justified and compelling reason other than the possible business.
As the intelligent friend who pointed out the experiment to me notes, If we were to call for the defence of animal rights, we would probably have a better chance of stopping this horror than if we were to call for the rights of women - and those of girls and children - to be taken into account, which have never been as little considered in modern times as they are in this painful end of the patriarchy.
Marina Terragni
