Human sexuality to split into test tubes and pleasure pills

According to Russian scientists, human sexuality will split into two separate constituents during the next several years: for receiving pleasure and for reproduction. Humans will be performing the two functions with the help of medicine: they will grow test tube babies and receive sexual pleasures with the help of special pills. If it does happen some time in the future, what is the point of having a family then?

"The reproductive process will evolve from the natural process and an attribute of human sexuality to something that will be qualified as freedom of choice. It will be a subject of rational actions, control and planning," Pavel Tishchenko, a senior scientist with the department of humanitarian expertise and bioethics of the Institute for Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences said.

The scientist believes that we are now witnessing the development of a new stage of sexual revolution - "the redeconstruction of sexuality," as he said. The separation of human sexuality into two unrelated constituents may eventually take place indeed, taking into consideration such biomedical technologies as advanced contraception, in vitro fertilization and even artificial uterus, which may become a reality already in the near future.

To exemplify his theory of a family of the future, the scientist referred to the story of two American gay men. Following their paternal instincts, the two men hired an egg donor and surrogate mothers. As a result, they became fathers to three children conceived with their sperm.

"The appearance of IVF leads to the appearance of strange identities. A baby conceived in a test tube may have up to five parents: the egg donor, the sperm donor, the surrogate mother and a couple of infertile parents, who ordered and paid the creation of the child. Children can thus be born into same-sex families too," the professor said.

The scientist told another story. A woman decided to changed her sex and then contracted a marriage with another woman. When the couple decided to have a baby, it turned out that the wife was incapable of bearing the child, but the woman's husband could do it because the man still had the uterus. To give birth to the baby, the man became a woman again and conceived the baby with the help of donor sperm. Having delivered the baby, the transgender mother decided that she would eventually like to be the father and the husband.

Nowadays, biomedical technologies can give happiness of parenthood to infertile couples. However, they can also become a loophole for those who consider natural reproduction a burden. To crown it all, such technologies generate considerable profits for commercial clinics, but no one gives any guarantees of health to "artificial" children.

Neither the Orthodox, nor the Roman Catholic Church approve such an approach to procreation. The church does not separate human sexual passion from procreation. In addition, it is absolutely natural to presume that artificial conception may result in unpredictable consequences for a child in the future.

As for sexual satisfaction, it is quite possible that future generations will prefer to simply take special pills that will stimulate the pleasure center in the brain.

The sexual and reproductive revolution may thus establish human loneliness as a universal phenomenon. If children are going to be grown in incubators and sexual pleasures will be derived from taking pills, what's the point of having a family?

Olga Gumanova

Pravda.Ru

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