Are men the latest endangered species? Well yes, insists a leading Aussie expert, who says men are much ahead in the queue of becoming extinct.
In a speech titled 'Should Human Beings Have Sex', Dr Robert Sparrow told the Australian Medical Students Association convention that females could soon rule the world as hermaphrodites without any biological use for men.And the reason behind it is the that with the help of some frozen sperm at first, females could procreate on their own until stem-cell technology meant bone marrow and other human tissue could be converted into sperm, the senior lecturer at Monash University's Centre for Human Bioethics said.
To reach this post-sex world, Dr Sparrow said parents wanting the best for their children should start choosing baby girls through IVF because they live longer and have more opportunities in life.
"There are significant restrictions on the opportunities available to men around gestation, childbirth, and breastfeeding, which will be extremely difficult to overcome via social or technological mechanisms in the foreseeable future. Women also have longer life expectancies than men," theage.com.au quoted him, as saying.
Dr Sparrow said his somewhat "tongue-in-cheek" argument was based on a line of thought about medical ethics that suggests medical technology should be used to serve the welfare of individuals and remove limitations on the opportunities available to them.
He said: "I argue that, if these are our goals, we may do well to move towards a 'post-sex' humanity.
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"Girl babies therefore have a significantly more 'open' future than boy babies."
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SPH