Tuesday, April 7, 2009

MALE CONTRACEPTIVE COMING SOON?

Ever since the contraceptive pill for women has been on the market, men have sat back , making the assumption that unless they resorted to vasectomies, contraception was up to women . Then HIV came along making genital contact somewhat risky, since it was discovered that infection was being passed around through casual sexual contacts and from people who had transfusions with tainted blood, so that HIV was now being passed to people other than contact with gay men.

Interestingly, some men learned that the only way there could be no 'failure' of contraceptives was to have a vasectomy. This could happen only to men who were sure they wanted no , or no more, children. Some, fearful of later regret, have reversible vasectomies. Regardless of the intent of possible reversal, all reversals are difficult and may not be possible.

Finally, scientists have detected a human gene flaw which can be linked to male infertility. The study of Iranian families found mutations in the CATSPER1 gene which controls a protein determining sperm movement. "Researchers say the finding could lead to treatments for infertile men - and potentially to a new contraceptive."

If males take total control of their own sperm so that women can no longer trick them into fertilizing their egg and claim contraception failure, (thus insuring a paid-for child rearing with out the bother of living with the father or sharing responsibilities of raising the child.) No reader can be shocked to see it, still all too often, in our society.

Since I believe one can be both Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion to maintain quality of all lives, I do not think a male contraceptive will take away all spontaneous mating in humans, but it might help lower the number of unwanted pregnancies. It will surely allow both men and women to be on a more equal playing field, both more in control of their own ability to decide if they wish to take on the responsibility of parenting with that particular sexual partner. Nothing will solve all the problems but I think it would be a healthy start. It might assure that quality of life will go on beyond birth...an element that is too frequently ignored by the zealots preaching life in the embryo but care little about the children who come into the world only to die of malnutrition or disease before the first year of their life is through. That incongruity of goal makes me distrust the sanctity of the fertilized embryo when it is clear that, after birth, that embryo-now-a -human child will be sentenced to rejection, hardship, starvation, and misery.

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