Could it be you, baby?

My mind is weary, and this is because since last weekend I have been thinking hard about how different the world would be if men could get pregnant.

Back in 1973, American civil rights activist Florynce R. Kennedy was quoted as saying, "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament," a reference to the fact that the laws that determine how women may manage their wombs are made by a group that is overwhelmingly male. If men could get pregnant, it probably would not have taken the Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry's drug approval committee (which in 2001 comprised 198 men and six women) some 30 years to permit domestic distribution of the birth-control pill (versus the mere six months the committee needed to give Viagra the thumbs up). If men could get pregnant, prenatal care and maternity leave would likely be more developed and generous, and the government would be doing more to support single-parent families.

But looking at the big picture, I wonder whether, if men could get pregnant, the whole patriarchal system would not eventually collapse in on itself, sucking capitalism and militarization into the vortex.