Are 1 man + 1 woman still needed to produce offspring?

1. 77

   FitnezzJimposted 10 years ago

   Are 1 man + 1 woman still needed to produce offspring?
   
   Our local newspaper has a 'letter to the editor' that claims "1 man + 1 woman still needed to produce offspring".      Considering the recent advances in implanting children from test tubes and developments in cloning technology, is this still true?  For how long?
   
   The article is at http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2013 … 13/780564.
   
   
   
   
   

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2. 0

   Old Poolmanposted 10 years ago

   Jim, as far as I know, the answer is still yes.  But not necessarily in the old fashioned way.  But then again, I know people pay huge bucks to have their dog cloned, so I guess most anything is possible.

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3. 80

   dashingscorpioposted 10 years ago

   Technology has advanced where the actual sexual act is not required to produce a child however an egg and sperm will continue to be required to create a child. With regard to cloning I highly doubt that would ever be legalized even if it could be done without major side effects.

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4. 60

   duffsmomposted 10 years ago

   You have to get the basic parts (sperm and egg) from somewhere so yes, it has to begin with a man and a woman or at least what they offer in terms of reproduction.

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5. 64

   CrescentSkiesposted 10 years ago

   Actually considering the level of cloning technology our scientists could possibly use cloning to create a child between two females or two males. I'm pretty sure the offspring could be brought up in a test tube of nutrient-rich fluids with a little more research on the process but that would probably bring up a bunch of ethics issues with religious fanatics...I'd name other groups but I can't actually think of any non-religious fanatic I've ever met that would be against this.

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6. 52

   myeffortsposted 10 years ago

   The basic participants are egg and sperm, coming from woman and man. I believe yes, they would be needed. Talking about cloning, as far as I know, it is a copy of the existing individual, not altogether a new and unique individual. That is still questionable.

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7. 82

   peachpurpleposted 10 years ago

   Well in my opinion male and female are not compulsory required to produce an offspring , science and doctors could implant sperms from sperm bank to produce baby from another woman's womb , no sexual activity involved, so anything can be done as long you have money

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   1. 52

      myeffortsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      But again, sperms in the sperm bank are coming from men and eggs from a woman.....

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8. 79

   jlparkposted 10 years ago

   Right now - the actual sperm and egg are still needed. So, a man does need to donate his 'goods' for a lesbian couple to use, and an egg and surrogate still need to be used for men to conceive.
   
   BUT, from what I can recall, and unfortunately I can't provide articles on it (given the short amount of time I have, etc) - but I do remember an article a while back about some research in the ???UK where they were looking at using a woman's stem cells to produce sperm.
   
   The theory seems to make sense - stem cells are where ALL cells in the body start from, so in theory manipulating these to become sperm cells rather than say skin or ovum cells could be done....in theory.  Which would mean that two woman, with the assistance of medical technology, could become the biological parents of a daughter - daughter as the 'sperm' would be all X's, due to the stem cells being from a woman.
   There is a movie about it in theory, the Baby...something..(gah!), but I've actually read an article in an online magazine on it - granted it's not a medical one...yet!.
   
   Can it be done yet? No. Will it ever be able to be done? Not sure - possibly??
   
   To answer your question - is it still one man +one woman? Simply put - yes.
   Does it need the actual sexual act? No.
   
   However, sometimes it's more than one man - when one man does not have the goods - a donor may step in, or be used - just as it can be more than one woman - a donor egg, in the mothers womb...etc etc....but when you get down to it - it's still one persons ovum and one person's sperm isn't it?

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9. 77

   HeatherH104posted 10 years ago

   I love this question. It's one of those that make you dream of what could be in the future. I wouldn't doubt that sometime in the future we would master cloning and overcome the ethic issues. I'd love to be able to peek into the future and see how we handle this issue. But for now, as far as I know, we still need a man part and a woman part to produce a baby.

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10. 39

    Borsiaposted 10 years ago

    No matter how you combine them the basic elements of 1 egg and 1 sperm still require a male and a female.

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11. 76

    Diana Leeposted 10 years ago

    They no longer need to be together physically to produce, but both the female egg and male sperm need to interact to produce an offspring. They can be frozen and used years later.  With this in mind one could have an offspring after they are dead and gone.

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