Summary 5

Ball P. Artificial babies are so last century. Nature [Internet]. 2009 Jul 30 [cited 2009 Sept 17]; doi:10.1038/news.2009.747. Available from: http://www.nature.com.mutex.gmu.edu/news/2009/090731/full/news.2009.747.html

According to Philip Ball, many people are scared and upset by the research done by Karim Nayernia, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Newcastle, UK. Nayernia has found a way to alter normal embryonic stem cells into cells resembling sperm cells. These cells are not sperm cells. Hysteria over the role of science in the sexes is not a new one.
Some people are concerned that long dead people will be reproduced. Others are concerned that the role of men might become minimal if they aren’t needed to reproduce. These sorts of concerns have been seen before. In the 1920’s people were terrified that test tube babies, a concept thought up by British biologist J. B. S. Haldane in his book Daedalus; or Science and the Future, would make men pointless. The conservative philosopher, Anthony Ludovici, was concerned that ectogenesis (the process of incubating a baby outside of the female womb) would make men obsolete, and that women would only keep a very small number of men around as sperm donors. The rest of the men produced, Ludovici thought, would be sent to slaughter. Ball tells us to not fall prey to the panic that we now scoff at others in the past for exhibiting.