DS9 - "Body Parts"

I've been enjoying some episodes from Season 4 of Deep Space 9, a period in the show when the Dominion War is heating up.  Right now, I've hit pause on "Body Parts" - one of those intriguing plotlines Trek likes to do, in which the real life pregnancy of Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys) is dealt with by having the fictional child of Chief and Keiko O'Brien transferred to the Major's womb in emergency circumstances.

Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig - or Siddig El Fadil, in previous seasons; in real life, the father of Visitor's child), explaining to the Chief and Captain Cisco after the transfer procedure has taken place, says, "I had to find another womb for the baby, and the only two people available were Major Kira and me."

Cisco nods sagely and says in his inimitable voice, "I think you made the right choice, Doctor."



I'm leaving some space after that statement so as to simulate a bit of a pause here.  Let's leave aside the contrivance that we're dealing with, the management of a cast pregnancy we don't want to script for the character, and think about the universe Trek is supposed to take place in, and its cultures.

Major Kira is Bajoran, and Keiko O'Brien a human being.  The incompatibilities between these species are dealt with in pretty compelling detail as the O'Brien/Kira pregnancy advances.  The dangers are not minimal, and there are risks.

The doctor says, specifically, "I had to find another WOMB for the baby."

But ... even since I was a little girl, medical science has acknowledged the physical fitness of the human male to carry a child.  Biologically imperative it ain't, but in a gestation similar to the mechanism of an ectopic pregnancy, it's long been accepted as physically possible.  Given the supposed gender equality and socially openminded milieu of Trek, particularly DS9 (there is at least one episode where Cisco himself talks about buying a baby gift for an expectant *father* on the station), would not the least impact have been made on this child by providing it the nearest possible equivalent of its mother's species gestational environment?  A human body?

(Yes, yes, yes - I am aware the point was to deal with Visitor's condition - we're being intentionally esoteric here, looking at the question, not the actual situation.)

Given Siddig's actual paternity (again, yes, I know I'm contradicting my own logic here - it's NOT as if Trek doesn't do that constantly!), there'd be a certain rightness about his taking on this particular, ah, function.  And he's the doctor.  Heck, prenatal care is right there, and with the right species as incubator too.

My point is that the built-in presumption was that this particular plot contrivance could be so unquestionably presumed is built, in fact, on a gender role expectation already explicitly contradicted by the show's own internal logic and societies.  Where demonstrated, even pointed, diversity in biological and gender roles has been so explicitly stated - it's weird that the only reason the inter-species transplantation of a pregnancy is performed is that the only same-species candidate around was a male.

Trek does this sort of thing all the time, of course - and often coming up with varying answers for itself depending on the needs of one given episode.  I don't find these sorts of things annoying, but do find the convolutions fascinating.  Almost like Bible study, the loopholes, errors, and omissions are for some worthwhile in themselves.  Like, what's a fig tree doing in a vineyard?  Heh.


Edited to add:  TWO EPISODES LATER, we're again mentioning the male gestating parent "budding" again - indeed, commenting on his prolific littering!