Slashdot Mirror
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."
...is thinking of the "Baby Harvesting" scene in the The Matrix right about now??
a step closer to having male pregnancy,,another Arnold movie predicts real life =p
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
How do you know that the deaf, dumb or blind aren't better physically suited to the environment of the future, but have simply evolved early?
I can think of advantages to all 3. Having a hard time coming up for a reason for ugly though.
Rod Taylor
But in this case, I did.
'Overpopulated' is one of these wonderful terms, that suggests a scientific problem. But really means 'there are some people I would rather weren't born.'
More specifically, 'overpopulaton' - whatever that is supposed to mean - is used as a euphamism for 'too many of them, about the right number of us.'
When we talk of overpopulation, what we are really saying is 'there are a class of people who should not be allowed to reproduce.' That is a dangerous and evil thought...
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong!
*r
--- My dad's political betting
Arguing about how many people the earth can theoretically support is ridiculous; you are ignoring the base issue that the planet has a finite amount of resources and as the number of organisms depending on them increases, the share they can each use decreases. If you want to live on a very efficient diet (the world could not even support the current population if everyone ate as much meat as Americans), see drastic decreases in your share of the planet's surface area and the area of wilderness, then go ahead and leave your head up your ass.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
A lot of people have brought up the issue of abortion and viability, suggesting that this sort of technology may have an effect on the ethics of aborting a fetus that may be considered viable at any stage.
However, there's another interesting consequence... What if a fetus could be transplated from a natural womb to an artificial one? Let's say a woman wants to have an abortion, and the doctor says, "We can either terminate the fetus, or we can transplant it to an artificial womb and put it up for adoption".
Would it ever be ethical to destroy the fetus in this case? This eliminates the argument of autonomy . Should a woman have the right to decide whether or not to destroy her fetus or simply put it up for adoption?
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
Ok. I tried not to get pissed off... Didn't work. Not even thinking happy thoughts about the new computer I get to build soon worked.
Number one: I am deaf, it has NOTHING to do with my genes and I fully intend on procreating once I find a suitable life-partner to do so with.
Number two: If a couple, or woman, or man can take care of a child they should be permitted to procreate if they like. It's those who cannot take care of their offspring that should not be permitted to.
Number three: You assume that genes have everything to do with everything. My deafness is a far cry from being related to genetics, and so might peoples sterility, blindness, stupidity, and ugliness.
Number four: This is slashdot, I think we are all far beyond merely "depending" on technology. I can probably safely bet that 9/10ths of us would commit suicide if technology were eliminated from the planet tomorrow. (This is a safe bet because I'd probably be the first to go.)
There are enough LOGICAL reasons to argue against this without pushing buttons. ie:
1- Impact on the offspring-- The subtle shifting of hormonal balances, nutrients, etc. in the natural womb cannot be duplicated exactly. What will the impact on the offspring be mentally, physically, and emotionally?
2- Human bonding- The bonding process begins in the womb. We might end up with a whole generation of children who are emotionally and mentally like the monkey in the experiment with the wire and "fur" surrogate mothers.
3- Potential of mass-producing human life for slavery, medical experiments, or the like. Do we really want to open the doors to this possibility?
Screw evolution. Do you really think that anything going on today allows evolution? Miracle drugs and antibiotics to curb infection, breast implants to attract males, CPR to save lives, the internet to allow the meeting of geeks who would never otherwise venture outside even if it meant never reproducing... We're far beyond evolution at this point. Now all we can *really* do is sit back and watch the world fall apart or come together whatever the case might be.
-Sara
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"?
When we talk of overpopulation, what we are really saying is 'there are a class of people who should not be allowed to reproduce.' That is a dangerous and evil thought...
True. Some people think that population control means killing, if not sterilizing large amounts of people accordingly deemed unfit to reproduce. Or, failing that, strict fecundity restrictions a la China.
Most people who don't already have a genocidal streak inside them think more in terms of improved contraception and an increased standard of living [which need not be as profligate as that of your typical U.S. resident] as the ticket to a lower birth rate.
Happy, well-fed people with lives worth living tend to find it less of a priority to create new ones. That's what has been happening in almost every industrialized Western country in the past few decades, and is not happening in areas of greater human need.
Now, how to make this happen is another can of worms entirely---but most sane people concerned about overpopulation rightfully see authoritarian measures as a giant leap backward.
iSKUNK!
There's a LOT more to an artificial womb than getting the embryo to attach. The baby/mother system has lots of biochemical communication, turning mommy into a nutrient factory for the little tyke under construction.
Her body sacrifices the calcium in her bones, the energetic compounds and trace elements in her fat, and the vitamins in her bloodstream, handing it off to the foetus as directed by a plethora of signals. She gets morning sickness from folic acid deficiency and strange appetites at odd hours ("Honey, run out and get me some Ice Cream and Pickles!") whenever baby needs some oddball compound. And then there's the support, massage, and shaping performed by the bag of muscles the kid lives in for 9 months.
The signals are FAR from all known, and you can bet that kidlet will not form up healthy and happy if you just give him/her a stock nutrient solution rather than adjusting it according to his/her signals.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You are so right.
We have no idea what we're getting into. And we have no idea what we don't know yet about the natural gestation process.
It is a silly and frankly stupid notion that everyone has a right to reproduce biologically, and that that right must be enabled by expensive new technology. If you can't make a child naturally, you can adopt one. God knows there are enough already who need to be adopted.
What's up over there in the States? Is it rendered illegal to adopt a poor child from your local community or even a poor foreign country? Or is it unpopular now, because that cute little kiddie might have terrorist genes because it came from Somalia?
Speaking as an (adoptive) parent, there are a bunch of reasons.
Adoption works. It's truly sad that so few people understand that.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"