Like a Virgin (37 page)
Authors: Aarathi Prasad
What were once invisible, indivisible seeds of life will act as portals rather than as ingredients to be brought together to create a child. The constituent, beautiful machinery of which eggs
are built will very soon broker successful pregnancies and healthier babies – with three genetic parents. This fast advancing area of research involves transferring the male and female
parents’ DNA into a donor egg, which already contains a package of DNA from the donor, in a tiny organ in the egg called a mitochondrion. The child born from this process would inherit a
fraction of his or her genetic code from the egg donor, breaking the rules of reproduction as we know them today.
There already are children born from permutations of
biological, gestational, and genetic input from more than two adults, and this will increasingly be humanity’s
future. Whether or not medical intervention soon gives women and men the choice of having biological children with a person of their same sex or completely on their own – unrestricted by the
physical limits of the human body as well as the socio-economic limits on the human soul – the reproduction of the future is set to rewrite much of the fabric of human society. Male plus
female equals baby will no longer be our only path forward. As we conceive the once inconceivable and take full control of how and when we bring the next generation into the world, we are sure to
dislodge many notions of sex and gender along the way.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Prologue
Bondeson, Jan (1997).
A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
. London: I. B. Tauris.
Porter, Ian Herbert (1963). ‘Thomas Bartholin (1616–80) and Niels Steensen (1638–86) Master and Pupil’.
Medical History
7(2): 99–125.
Wells, H. G. (1993).
Ann Veronica
, ed. Sylvia Hardy. London: Orion Publishing Group.
1. Planting the Seed
Andry de Bois-Regard, Nicolas (2010).
An Account of the Breeding of W
orms in Human Bodies
. n.p.: Gale Ecco.
Aristotle (1910).
On the Generation of Animals
, trans. Arthur Platt. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bayrakdar, Mehmet (1983). ‘Al-Jahiz and the Rise of Biological Evolution.’
Islamic Quarterly
Third Quarter: 307–15.
de Balzac, Honoré (1841).
Catherine de’ Medici
, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormele (1894). Boston: Roberts Bros.
C., T. E. Jr. (1975). ‘Galen on Why the Female Is More Imperfect than the Male.’
Pediatrics
55(4): 562.
Gaziel, Ahuva (2012). ‘Questions of Methodology in Aristotle’s Zoology: A Medieval Perspective.’
Journal of the History of Biology
45(2):
329–52.
Gordetsky, Jennifer, Ronald Rabinowitz, and Jeanne O’Brien (2009). ‘The “Infertility” of Catherine de Medici and its Influence on
16th Century France.’
Canadian Journal of Urology
16(2): 4584–8.
Gould, Stephen Jay (1991). ‘Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples’ in
Bully for Brontosaurus: Further Reflections in Natural History
. New York: W.W. Norton, pp.
41–58.
Haimov-Kochman, Ronit, Yael Sciaky-Tamir, and Arye Hurwitz (2005). ‘Reproduction Concepts and Practices in Ancient Egypt Mirrored by Modern Medicine.’
European
Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
123(1): 3–8.
Hartmann, Franz (1891).
The Life and the Doctrines of Philippus Theophrastus, Bombast of Hohenheim, Known by the Name of Paracelsus
. New York: American Publishers
Co.
Laqueur, Thomas (1994).
Making Sex: Body and Gender From the Greeks to Freud
(8th ed.). Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Tipton Jason A. (2006). ‘Aristotle’s Study of the Animal World: The Case of the kobios and phucis.’
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
49(3):
369–83.
Walker, William H. (2010). ‘Non-classical Actions of Testosterone and Spermatogenesis.’
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
365:
1557–69.
2. The Story of Safe Sex
Bittles, A. H. (2009). ‘The Background and Outcomes of the First-cousin Marriage Controversy in Great Britain.’
International Journal of Epidemiology
38(6):
1453–8.
Haldane, J. B. S. (1938).
Heredity and Politics
. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Hamilton, William D., and Marlene Zuk (1982). ‘Heritable True Fitness and Bright Birds: A Role for Parasites?’
Science
218(4570): 384–7.
Paul, Diane B., and Hamish G. Spencer (2009). ‘“It’s Ok, We’re Not Cousins by Blood”: The Cousin Marriage Controversy in Historical
Perspective.’
PLoS Biology
6(12): e320.
Ridley, Matt (1995).
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
. New York: Penguin Books.
Van Valen, Leigh (1973). ‘A New Evolutionary Law.’
Evolutionary Theory
1: 1–30.
Weissman, Charlotte (2010). ‘The Origins of Species: The Debate between August Weismann and Moritz Wagner.’
Journal of the
History of
Biology
43(4): 727–66.
3. Desperately Seeking a Virgin Birth
n.a. (1955). ‘Parthenogenesis in Mammals.’
The Lancet
266–968.
Balfour-Lynn, Stanley (1956). ‘Parthenogenesis in Human Beings.’
The Lancet
267(6931): 1071–2.
Chapman, Demian D., Mahmood S. Shivji, et al. (2007). ‘Virgin Birth in a Hammerhead Shark.’
Biology Letters
3(4): 425–7.
Fournier, Denis, Arnaud Estoup, et al. (2005). ‘Clonal Reproduction by Males and Females in the Little Fire Ant.’
Nature
435(7046): 1230–4.
Hales, Dinah F., Alex C. C. Wilson, et al. (2002). ‘Lack of Detectable Genetic Recombination on the X Chromosome during the Parthenogenetic Production of Female and Male
Aphids.’
Genetics Research
79(3): 203–9.
Iavazzo, Christos, Constantinos Trompoukis, Thalia Sardi, and Matthew E. Falagas (2008). ‘Conception, Complicated Pregnancy, and Labour of Gods and Heroes in Greek
Mythology.’
Reproductive BioMedicine Online
17 (suppl. 1): 11–14.
Lutes, Aracely A., Diana P. Baumann, William B. Neaves, and Peter Baumann (2011). ‘Laboratory Synthesis of an Independently Reproducing Vertebrate Species.’
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
108(24): 9910–15.
Olsen, M. W. (1965). ‘Twelve Year Summary of Selection for Parthenogenesis in Beltsville Small White Turkeys.’
British Poultry Science
6: 1–6.
Origen. Contra Celsum, Book 1.http://www.gnosis.org/library/orig_cc1.htm.
Spurway, Helen (1953). ‘Spontaneous Parthenogenesis in a Fish.’
Nature
171(4349): 437.
— (1955). ‘Virgin Births.’
New Statesman and Nation
50: 651.
Stouthamer, Richard, Robert F. Luck, and William D. Hamilton (1990). ‘Antibiotics Cause Parthenogenetic Trichogramma (Hymenoptera/Trichogrammatidae) to Revert to
Sex.’
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
87(7): 2424–7.
Strain, Lisa, Jon P. Warner, Thomas Johnston, and David T. Bonthron (1995). ‘A Human Parthenogenetic Chimaera.’
Nature Genetics
11: 164–9.
Watts, Phillip C., Kevin R. Buley, et al. (2006). ‘Parthenogenesis in Komodo Dragons.’
Nature
444(7122): 1021–2.
4. The Concert in the Egg
Hunter, Graeme K. (2000).
Vital Forces: The Discovery of the Molecular Basis of Life
. San Diego: Academic Press.
Lee, Yong Ho, Sung Gun Kim, Sung Hyuk Choi, In Sun Kim, and Sun Haeng Kim (2003). ‘Ovarian Mature Cystic Teratoma Containing Homunculus: A Case Report.’
Journal
of Korean Medical Science
18: 905–7.
Masui, Yoshio, and Clement L. Markert (1971). ‘Cytoplasmic Control of Nuclear Behavior during Meiotic Maturation of Frog Oocytes.’
Journal of Experimental
Zoology
177: 129–45.
Verkuyl, Douwe A. (1988). ‘Oral Conception: Impregnation via the Proximal Gastrointestinal Tract in a Patient with an Aplastic Distal Vagina – Case Report.’
British Journal of Obstetric Gynaecology
95(9): 933–4.
5. Secrets of the Womb
Brown, Jennifer R., Hong Ye, Roderick T. Bronson, Pieter Dikkes, and Michael E. Greenberg (1996). ‘A Defect in Nurturing in Mice Lacking the Immediate Early Gene
fosB.’
Cell
86(2): 297–309.
Gupta, Anshu, Malathi Srinivasan, Supaporn Thamadilok, and Mulchand S. Patel (2009). ‘Hypothalamic Alterations in Fetuses of High Fat Diet-Fed Obese Female Rats.’
J
ournal of Endocrinology
200: 293–300.
Grant, Valerie J., and Lawrence W. Chamley (2010). ‘Can Mammalian Mothers Influence the Sex of Their Offspring Peri-conceptually?’
Reproduction
140(3):
425–33.
Isoda, Takeshi, Anthony M. Ford, et al. (2009). ‘Immunologically Silent Cancer Clone Transmission from Mother to Offspring.’
Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences
106(42): 17882–5.
Jones, Helen N., Laura A. Woollett, et al. (2009). ‘High-fat Diet before and during Pregnancy Causes Marked Up-regulation of Placental Nutrient Transport and Fetal
Overgrowth in C57/BL6 Mice.’
FASEB Journal
23(1): 271–8.
Reik, Wolf, and Jörn Walter (2001). ‘Genomic Imprinting: Parental Influence on the Genome.’
Nature Reviews Genetics
2: 21–32.
Villarreal, Luis P. (1997). ‘On Viruses, Sex, and Motherhood.’
Journal of Virology
71(20): 859–65.
Vrana, Paul B., Xiao-Juan Guan, Robert S. Ingram, and Shirley M. Tilghman (1998). ‘Genomic Imprinting Is Disrupted in Interspecific Peromyscus Hybrids.’
Nature
Genetics
20: 362–5.
6. Out of the Test Tube
Deech, Ruth (2008). ‘30 Years: From IVF to Stem Cells.’
Nature
454: 280–81.
Guttmacher, Alan F. (1943). ‘The Role of Artificial Insemination in the Treatment of Human Sterility.’
Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
19(8):
573–91.
Heaton, Claude E. (1956) ‘The Influence of J. Marion Sims on Gynecology.’
Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
32(9): 685–8.
Henig, Robin Marantz (2004).
Pandora’s Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution
. Cold Spring, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Press.
7. Out of Time
Checa, Miguel A., Pablo Alonso-Coello, et al. (2009). ‘IVF/ICSI with or without Preimplantation Genetic Screening for Aneuploidy in Couples without Genetic Disorders: A
Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.’
Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics
26(5): 273–83.
Just, W., A. Baumstark, et al. (2007). ‘Ellobius lutescens: Sex Determination and Sex Chromosome.’
Journal of Sexual Development
1(4): 211–21.
Marais, Gabriel A. B., Paulo R. A. Campos, and Isabel Gordo (2010). ‘Can Intra-Y Gene Conversion Oppose the Degeneration of the Human Y Chromosome? A Simulation
Study.’
Genome Biology and Evolution
2: 347–57.
Shah, Kavita, Gayahtri Sivapalan, Nicola Gibbons, Helen Tempest, and Darren K. Griffin (2003). ‘The Genetic Basis of Infertility.’
Reproduction
126(1):
13–25.
8. Real Men Bear Children
Alhusen, Jeanne L. (2008). ‘A Literature Update on Maternal-fetal
Attachment.’
Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal
Nursing
37(3): 315–28.
Aristarkhova, Irina (2005). ‘Ectogenesis and Mother as Machine.’
Body & Society
11(3): 43–59.
Bulletti, Carlo, Antonio Palagiano, et al. (2011). ‘The Artificial Womb.’
Annal
s of the New York Academy of Sciences
1221: 124–8.
Otway, Nick, and Megan Ellis (2011). ‘Construction and Test of an Artificial Uterus for Ex Situ Development of Shark Embryos.’
Zoological Biology
30:
1–9.
Raju, Tonse N. K. (2011). ‘Perinatal Profiles: Martin Couney and Newborn Infant Sideshows.’
NeoReviews
12(3): e127–9.
Unno, Nobuya, Yoshinori Kuwabara, et al. (1993). ‘Development of an Artificial Placenta: Survival of Isolated Goat Fetuses for Three Weeks with Umbilical Arteriovenous
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.’
Artificial Organs
17(12): 996–1003.
9. Going Solo
Kawahara, Manabu, and Tomohiro Kono (2009). ‘Longevity in Mice without a Father.’
Human Reproduction
25(2): 457–61.
Kenny, Nancy J., and Michelle L. McGowan (2010). ‘Looking Back: Egg Donors’ Retrospective Evaluations of Their Motivations, Expectations, and Experiences during
Their First Donation Cycle.’
Fertility and Sterility
93(2): 455–66.
Krueger, Andrew T., Larryn W. Peterson et al. (2011). ‘Encoding Phenotype in Bacteria with an Alternative Genetic Set.’
Journal of the American Chemical
Society
133(45): 18447–51.
White, Yvonne A. R., Dori C. Woods, et al. (2012). ‘Oocyte Formation by Mitotically Active Germ Cells Purified from Ovaries of Reproductive-age Women.’
Nature
Medicine
18(3): 413–21.