The Male Element
by
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It's the early 1990s and the concept of male "motherhood" is a common topic in American media of all kinds. the widespread public attention is sparking a revolution in human reproductive mores. Books on the subject are appearing. So are articles on such subjects as in vitro fertilization, cryogenesis, cloning, sex change. A movie burlesquing male pregnancy is a popular hit. Dr. Emlyn Brand believes male participation i the entire process of motherhood would help to equalize the societal contributions of men as compared to the traditional--and apperently immutable--roles of women. He has, he also beleives, devised a method by which males can safely bear and deliver offspring. He begins a search for a human "guinae pig," finding one quickly in the city's homosexual community. Brand, as a member of the medical staff of a university hospital, receives a warning from the hospital administrator that he would have to do his experimenting on male pregnancy on his own time and in other facilities, not those of the hospital. Brand finds a friend, obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Albert Madsen, who will work with him and provide the necessary office and lab facilities. Brand has begun when rumors about his work attract the attention of a beautiful woman, Laura Phillips. Laura is determined to become pregnant and bear a child despite the fact that her medical and genetic history rules out any existing procedure. She asks Brand if he can help and he says he will try. A professor of Ethics at the university believes, on hearing of Brand's plans, that the projects will not only give the community a bad name; they could lead to a breakdown in civic morals. The ethicist, James Vandorn, decides to prevent Brand from completing either of his projects--"pregnant man" or abdominal pregnancy for Mrs. Phillips. In a psychotic state he engineers a murder by poison and attempts to murder a second "male-mother" volunteer. Trying to disable Brand, he sustains a fatal wound.
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About the Book
Modern society, and in particular modern American society, survives, grows, and prospers on the mantra of progress. "Find a better way and don't look back"—that's the rubric that provides the driving power behind America's passion for advancement, invention, novelty. Well and good, say the thoughtfully inclined. But what of ethics, the branch of philosophy that asks us to judge whether human actions are right or wrong? Is anyone on the right side if ethics is not considered—in, say, performing an abortion? In the cloning of humans? In male "motherhood?” Such issues, plus others like artificial insemination and the embryonation of women, come to the point of open, violent conflict in William F. Keefe's novel The Male Element. Ethicist James Vandorn takes it upon himself to rid his peaceful community of what he considers crimes against nature. Those so-called crimes center on embryologist, Dr. Emlyn Brand's experiments with simians and then with volunteer human subjects. Brand's target: a "pregnant man."
Can the outcome be settled peaceably once each man decides that his cause is the valid one? Blood flows. A fetus is aborted by the violence that also leads to a protagonist's death.
About the Author
William F. Keefe served seven years in the United States Army. He worked in Chicago as an editor and communications consultant until 1967, when he founded his own organization, Action Research Institute, specializing in industrial consulting. A graduate of Loyola University, Chicago, he has over twenty-five books to his credit.