We've no right to feel too superior about the red top hype, though, have we? Because, let's be honest, we all like a bit of an ogle. And the odd "tut-tut". A pregnant man? Euuugh. Surely not. Ohmigod, there he is posing semi-naked like he thinks he's Demi Moore. Look at him flaunting his wispy beard, flat chest and swollen stomach. It's disgusting. And now (provided it doesn't turn out to be the hoax of the decade) he has fathered/mothered a baby girl. I don't know if he can breastfeed, since you ask. But as he doesn't have breasts, it seems unlikely.

And what about the 70-year-old woman who gave birth in an Indian village? Prematurely? To twins? She's an old crone who should be spending her twilight years relaxing, not recovering from a difficult labour in a mud hut. And her husband's 76. What can the future possibly hold for these babies, born to a woman old enough to be their great grandmother? It just goes to show what madness unfolds when science is let off the leash.

Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. But if you read beyond the shock horror headlines, these amazing pregnancies are more than just alarm bells warning us of an approaching ethical minefield. They are fascinating contemporary vignettes, which provide an insight into what curious, complex and contrary creatures we human beings are.

Take Thomas Beatie, for example. In medical terms, his tale is actually a bit of a letdown. Technically, he may be the first 'man' to give birth, but in a reproductive sense he is still female. In other words, he still has his ovaries, a womb and the other bits and bobs required to have a baby. All he had to do to conceive was to stop taking his bimonthly testosterone injections.

In the way it charts a human journey, however, his story could scarcely be more epic. Thomas, 34, was born Tracy Lagondino and was a stunning beauty queen before deciding he was supposed to be a man. And so he decided to change gender, taking testosterone and having his breasts cut off.

Having become legally male, he married his wife Nancy and settled down in Bend, Oregon, to start a family. And that might have been the end of the story. But Nancy suffered from endometriosis and had to have a hysterectomy, so Thomas agreed to have the baby.

Seeing him on The Oprah Winfrey Show, parading his belly to the oohs and aahs of the audience and allowing cameras to accompany him to his ultrasound scan, it was easy to dismiss him as an attention-seeker willingly offering himself up as a freak for 15 minutes of fame. But an interview given to the lesbian and gay website advocate.com, in which he talked about his "biological desire" for children and described the hurdles he and Nancy had to overcome to achieve their goal, showed he was more than just a Big Brother-style exhibitionist who got pregnant on a whim. Rather it revealed him as an earnest if single-minded man, capable of both great sacrifice (it must have taken a lot for him to restart his menstrual cycle after everything he'd been through to stop it) and great selfishness (in giving birth to a baby that will undoubtedly face prejudice from those around her).

In order to reproduce, Thomas has been forced to surrender his relatively anonymous existence in exchange for notoriety and humiliation. He has been demeaned by doctors who not only declined to treat him on religious grounds (as is their right), but refused even to recognise him as male or Nancy as his wife. It took the couple a year to get access to a sperm bank and they had to resort to artificial insemination. Then their first babies – triplets – had to be aborted because the pregnancy was ectopic. Whatever you think of the Beaties, they didn't take the easy option.

In the town of Muzaffarnagar in India, Omkari and Charan Panwar also gave up a lot to procreate. They already had two adult daughters, but in their world providing a son and heir was a matter of honour.

Now, I have no time for cultures which value boys more highly than girls; nor for elderly people producing babies that they lack the physical and emotional resources to care for. But I still think there is something moving about the notion of this couple selling their buffalo herd and taking out a bank loan so they would have someone to pass their land on to when they die; something poignant about their acceptance that joy and agony are so often bound together.

"Sometimes you have to expect pain if you want something good. My daughters have got a little brother, my husband and I have got an heir and that is all we ever wanted," Omkari said.

These stories have not radically altered my perspective on reproduction. I remain unconvinced we have a fundamental 'right' to have babies, particularly when nature suggests otherwise. And I believe the provision of IVF treatment should be tightly controlled, with the greatest possible emphasis placed on the welfare of the children created. But I think to sneer at Thomas Beatie and Omkari Panwar is to fail to understand the enormous power of the biological imperative; and to dismiss them as weirdos is to miss a valuable opportunity to confront our own prejudices. As the T-shirt Beatie wore as he was photographed trimming his lawn eight months ago put it: "Define Normal".