Dr. Calum MacKellar, a bioethicist associated with the University of Edinburgh, has been outspoken about egg nuclear transfer, expressing a concern that it could be used to "mate" the genetic material from two sperm cells to create a biological child from two men. Theoretically, the technique could be used to introduce sperm DNA into an enucleated egg, fertilize this "male egg" with another sperm and gestate the resulting embryo in a surrogate mother. (Of course, this could be done with the DNA of two female eggs as well.)

As simple as it might sound, this scenario is still somewhat remote, since the creation and fertilization of a male egg would require researchers to overcome certain biological obstacles, not just legislative and psychological ones. One such impediment would be the automatic response that mammalian gametic DNA seems to exhibit in which it recognizes the DNA of the opposite sex, otherwise known as imprinting. Nevertheless, MacKellar is concerned that loopholes in the British legislation allow research that could bring about the male egg. In the draft of a recent article, he asks rhetorically: "Would society accept such motherless children?"

Biologically speaking, egg nuclear transfer used for homosexual reproduction would closely mimic heterosexual reproduction, so, in essence, the resulting children would not be without the idealized two-parent home. The method does not replicate exact copies of humans, but instead allows all the necessary chance and mixing up of DNA that is standard in heterosexual reproduction, although the DNA doing the mixing would be sperm originated or egg originated only.

"That's creepy" was the response of a gay friend of mine when I told him of the idea for male eggs. But he went on to say that he's not against it, since he supports any and all varieties of reproductive freedom. Would he use it himself? "Perhaps, if it weren't prohibitively costly." Nevertheless, he's not overly enthusiastic about the concept, as in, "I don't feel liberated by it." Probably because he's not determined to have children of his own genetic makeup and views adoption or surrogacy as perfectly suitable alternatives.

Felicia Park-Rogers, director of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere in San Francisco, agrees with my gay friend. She acknowledges the human desire for a child of one's own flesh and blood and advocates "as many ethical options as possible" to create a family. Though she is resolutely opposed to human cloning for reproduction -- which she views as an act of pure narcissism -- the bearing of children by way of egg nuclear transfer, she says, is "a perfectly ethical option" for gay and straight parents.

Since most humans react with knee-jerk revulsion to the words "cloning" and "reproduction" when used in close proximity, egg nuclear transfer for purposes of reproduction will be a hard sell. A gut-level aversion to cloning for reproduction may be somewhat instinctive, at least as far as evolution is concerned: Human cloning technology in the name of medical research is expected to remain outside the process of procreation; cloning as a mode of reproduction muscles into the natural order of the species.

Nevertheless, it is clear that much of the queasiness about human cloning for purposes of reproduction will be motivated by homophobia. Protests against male eggs will not just be about the issue of cloning but about homosexuality and the rights of gay men and women to have biological children.

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