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Lab Develops Artificial Womb
Meowharishi writes: "According to this article at the Observer, scientists from Cornell University have successfully developed the first artificial womb. Embroys successfully attached themselves to the walls of these wombs and began to grow but were terminated to comply with regulations. Developments like this really offer tremendous opportunities for creating a family for those who cannot have children the old fashioned way."
How is this different from a couple's child being gestated in a surrogate mother's womb?
How is this different from a different organ - the kidney - being replaced with external machinery (dialysis)?
How is this different from the prosthetic limbs or the artifical hearts in development?
Our bodies are imperfect and sometimes bits don't work properly or break. We have the means to workaround these shortcomings with technology; in this case, we still need parents to provide the genetic material and, obviously, raise the child once it is born.
---
Oregon
In the book "The universe in a nutshell" by Stephen Hawking, he notes that humans developing inside an artificial womb would be able to develop larger brains. (of course, larger brains != more intelligence.. )
This device makes it possible for (baby|fetus)s to reach this "viability" mark much earlier...
I don't want to start a flame war, but what effect do you think technological advances such as these will have on ethics relating to unborn children/fetuses?
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Way back when I took a course in biomedical ethics, I learned about the "double effect" principle, which (I believe) is used by the Catholic church.
A quick search on Google led me to this site which has a good summary of it.
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
"I shall begin at the beginning," said the D.H.C. and the more zealous
students recorded his intention in their notebooks: Begin at the
beginning. "These," he waved his hand, "are the incubators." And opening
an insulated door he showed them racks upon racks of numbered test-tubes.
"The week's supply of ova. Kept," he explained, "at blood heat; whereas
the male gametes," and here he opened another door, "they have to be kept
at thirty-five instead of thirty-seven. Full blood heat sterilizes." Rams
wrapped in theremogene beget no lambs.
Still leaning against the incubators he gave them, while the pencils
scurried illegibly across the pages, a brief description of the modern
fertilizing process; spoke first, of course, of its surgical
introduction-"the operation undergone voluntarily for the good of Society,
not to mention the fact that it carries a bonus amounting to six months'
salary"; continued with some account of the technique for preserving the
excised ovary alive and actively developing; passed on to a consideration
of optimum temperature, salinity, viscosity; referred to the liquor in
which the detached and ripened eggs were kept; and, leading his charges to
the work tables, actually showed them how this liquor was drawn off from
the test-tubes; how it was let out drop by drop onto the specially warmed
slides of the microscopes; how the eggs which it contained were inspected
for abnormalities, counted and transferred to a porous receptacle; how
(and he now took them to watch the operation) this receptacle was immersed
in a warm bouillon containing free-swimming spermatozoa-at a minimum
concentration of one hundred thousand per cubic centimetre, he insisted;
and how, after ten minutes, the container was lifted out of the liquor and
its contents re-examined; how, if any of the eggs remained unfertilized,
it was again immersed, and, if necessary, yet again; how the fertilized
ova went back to the incubators; where the Alphas and Betas remained until
definitely bottled; while the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons were brought out
again, after only thirty-six hours, to undergo Bokanovsky's Process.
"Bokanovsky's Process," repeated the Director, and the students underlined
the words in their little notebooks.
One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bokanovskified egg will
bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and
every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into
a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one
grew before. Progress.
"Essentially," the D.H.C. concluded, "bokanovskification consists of a
series of arrests of development. We check the normal growth and,
paradoxically enough, the egg responds by budding."
Responds by budding. The pencils were busy.
He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a rack-full of test-tubes was
entering a large metal box, another, rack-full was emerging. Machinery
faintly purred. It took eight minutes for the tubes to go through, he told
them. Eight minutes of hard X-rays being about as much as an egg can
stand. A few died; of the rest, the least susceptible divided into two;
most put out four buds; some eight; all were returned to the incubators,
where the buds began to develop; then, after two days, were suddenly
chilled, chilled and checked. Two, four, eight, the buds in their turn
budded; and having budded were dosed almost to death with alcohol;
consequently burgeoned again and having budded-bud out of bud out of
bud-were thereafter-further arrest being generally fatal-left to develop
in peace. By which time the original egg was in a fair way to becoming
anything from eight to ninety-six embryos- a prodigious improvement, you
will agree, on nature. Identical twins-but not in piddling twos and threes
as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally
divide; actually by dozens, by scores at a time.
"Scores," the Director repeated and flung out his arms, as though he were
distributing largesse. "Scores."
But one of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage lay.
"My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply round on him. "Can't you see?
Can't you see?" He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. "Bokanovsky's
Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!"
Major instruments of social stability.
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory
staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.
"Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The
voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you
are. For the first time in history." He quoted the planetary motto.
"Community, Identity, Stability." Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify
indefinitely the whole problem would be solved."
Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of
identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to
biology.
What kind of psychological impact will it have if a baby is brought to term without any of the rocking, singing, ooh-ah, coo-coo, dinner, conversation, love and life of the mother in close contact? An "artificial womb" will presumably be a dark, enclosed tank with little or no human contact. There is substantial evidence to indicate that prenatal stimulation is important. I wonder what kind of messed up people will come out of these chambers.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I used to think like that, but ten I realised that darwinian evolution doesn't work like that. The important thing is SURVIVAL, never-ending reproduction of our genes, perpetuation of our cells. Its not HOW we do it that counts, its doing it.
Sure it means that a whole bunch of blind retards reproduce, but maybe one of those blind retards has a mutant gene that by pure coincidence will make them immune to some futur plague. Then that precious gene will be in the pool, and by ten we'll hopefully have gene-therapy, another unnatural way to play the natural selection game, and we'll all get to be saved from the plague by the reject's mutant gene.
If our big brains give us more ways to reproduce, it makes the species stronger, not weaker. And if artificial reproduction methods lead to a weakened human race that can't survive, the Amish will still be there to perpetuate the species.
Its not as if the whole world will abandon natural childbirthing to go to the axolt tubes.
You can't take the sky from me...
[giving up mod access for what some right-to-lifer with mod points is going to see as flamebate... but hey, opinion is opinion, and too many people seem to think that their opinions are FACT, so what the hell....]
It's not successful until the device can be proven to gestate a fetus to term, and that said fetus be functional and free of defencts (depending on the old truism of garbage in, garbage out with regards to the genetic materials). "Regulations" have allowed for nothing more than a proof of concept. Yee ha. Test it on a pig or something and see if it really works all the way.
Too many people are shooting straight from the hip with moral panic attacks about this- the results of which are essentially as close minded as "640k ought to be enough for anybody." The morally minded need to shut the fsck up and realize that they have no right to have ANY say in the procreation alternatives of other sentient individuals. I cannot assess wether or not this device is practical for reasons stated above- it's not a functional proof of concept until "regulations" (created or pushed through by the morally minded who seem to exist only to restrict the will of others) allow for a thorough test.
Is it a good idea? Of course; it's advancing science. Medical science and NASA would be about thirty years behind where we are now were it not for German scientific data garnered from the second world war.
The only life you have ANY say in is YOUR OWN. Now keep your mouth shut about why cloning and Gattica-style selective breeding is a bad idea.... because simply put, it doesn't presently exist, so we just don't KNOW, do we? It's not your life, it's not your choice, so fundamentally, it's *not your business* unless you're looking to reproduce and have run out of options.