New Scientist happy to see mothers eliminated in future

[Teribus21]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2485396-mice-with-two-fathers-have-their-own-offspring-for-the-first-time/
New Scientist has reported that scientists in China have produced mice with two genetic fathers by putting two sperm into an “empty” egg (one in which the nucleus has been removed).The article points out it’s a long way off being possible for humans. So far, so typical of scientists who abrogate any sort of moral responsibility for their discoveries. We’ve seen it many times before, most notably the nuclear bomb.

What shocked me was the gleeful New Scientist leader which is clearly thrilled by this discovery and and justifies their delight by saying: “For some people, the thought of a child with two genetic fathers will never be acceptable, just as there are still those who decry gay adoption.”

It goes on to say:

“While IVF children are conceived via a process our ancestors could never imagine, they still continue a genetic lineage of every person having one male progenitor and one female. Does this matter? Quite possibly not, what was once front page news as with IVF could become run of the mill. But in an era when the US is seeking to curtail reproductive and transgender rights, having an open discussion will be the bigger challenge.”

So if you’re at all concerned about the potential elimination of women in reproduction and a human race entirely composed of male genetic material, you’re an anti abortion, homophobic, transphobic Trump supporter according to the women haters at New Scientist. We know who is seeking to prevent rational debate.

“For some people, the thought of a child with two genetic fathers will never be acceptable, just as there are still those who decry gay adoption.”
and
"But in an era when the US is seeking to curtail reproductive and transgender rights, having an open discussion will be the bigger challenge.”

These are just really weird things to bring up in the context of the science. This is happening in China - where gay men are not entitled to adopt, you have to have gender reassignment surgery to be allowed to change your sex on your driving license and can still be discriminated against and recently, for the first time since the 1950s, China has started to restrict abortion access.

It does sound like they are just trying to shoehorn a culture war discussion that they haven't even really thought through into a report on breakthrough science.

There has been a lot of pushing of the concept of two men, or even single men, adopting and/or using surrogates recently. Taking the concept of 'equality' to its most extreme and dystopian ends. The darker and ethically questionable sides of transhumanism.

And it works (if it ever works) both ways there could equally be two mother's and at least they have the most important bits of equipment a womb each.

There has to be an element in all of this - of the way that motherhood/female biology has been denigrated in recent decades; has been seen as an oppressive construct foisted upon female people, from which they long to escape.

I'm sure there's a they/them person who writes for NS. They're probably all a bit captured and trying to "be kind" 🙄.

They can be either sex.

X and Y chromosomes undergo only limited recombination, which is why Y chromosomes can be tracked through multiple male generations.

So, as far as the XX and the XY are concerned, genetically, it's like one grandmother reproduced with the other grandfather.

(The other 22 chromosome pairs are equally related to all four grandparents, and the mitochondria, which can be tracked through multiple previous female generations, come from the extranuclear part of the egg.)

They probably killed it.

Then can a YY baby occur and what happens then?

Would they be “designing” the offspring by selecting the gene combinations so that wouldn’t happen?

From the article:

.... combining two sperm cells means a quarter of the embryos had two Y chromosomes and wouldn’t have developed far.....

It cant develop without at least one X chromosome.

FWIW I cancelled my subscription to new scientist because in their language and especially in their podcast they were unable to clearly talk about male and female differences in humans and had a clear political line to lead which I found to be incompatible with a science publication. I did tell them about it when I quit.

All types of pregnancy only have limited success. It is approximately one fifth of all pregnancies that ends as a miscarriage.

IVF is extremely successful when the mum is below 35 years old.

30-40% per cycle leading to a live birth doesn’t sound very successful to me

It's not so out of whack with the natural process. The 20% of pregnancies ending in miscarriage is only known pregnancies. With natural pregnancy there are several days when miscarriage is more likely but not recognised because the pregnancy isn't known about. With IVF pregnancy is monitored from the first day. Potentially 50% of fertilizations and 30+% of pregnancies, not using IVF, are thought not to make it through to a live birth. Mother nature is pretty brutal.

It is! And for good reason, I’m just perhaps saying the dream sold is not as rosey as made out

It would be remiss not to mention such positions for any readers happily unaware of such bigotry in contemporary society as it will influence how long it will take to refine the process into a reliable one.

Surely they should be talking about the Chinese context, then.Far more relevant than the US. But if that’s the goal they need to be a lot more nuanced than they are. Social mores have only a muted impact on what is, in both countries, big business.

Why do they never ask whether any human has the right to create another human in this Frankenstein way? What of our duty to the human being created? what of their right to have a mother? Or is the child merely a commodity produced to satisfy its father wish?

I can't help but think of the Jurassic Park quote.

All this meddling with eggs and sperm was always going to end badly.

This ought to be repeated in every lab, but unfortunately for us, ethics is rarely part of the discussion.

Big pharma is currently losing out to ideological zealotry in the US from vaccines to abortion to cancer research in the administration and the courts but ok.

Commercial interests lose some battles to regulatory interests, not all be a long way. And that could be something to talk about in the article rather than throwaway lines that assume the audience has the same ideological zealotry as the author though, again, for this article it would be far more on point to discuss how these interests intersect in China.