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Artificial Wombs In the Near Future?
New submitter DaemonDan writes "The first successful pregnancy by IVF was accomplished over 50 years ago, essentially creating a multi-billion dollar industry. Many scientists are trying to take it one step farther with a 100% test tube baby brought to term in an artificial womb. 'Cornell University's Dr. Hung-Ching Liu has engineered endometrial tissues by prompting cells to grow in an artificial uterus. When Liu introduced a mouse embryo into the lab-created uterine lining, "It successfully implanted and grew healthy," she said in this New Atlantis Magazine article. Scientists predict the research could produce an animal womb by 2020, and a human model by early 2030s.' The author of the article seems to believe that birth via artificial wombs could become the new norm, but is it really feasible, desirable or even affordable for the majority of Earth's population?"
My first born son has been in the hospital for the last three months. He was born a little early. Let's just say that I'm open to the idea of not going through that again.
Should we use these to decant Alphas or Epsilon semi-morons?
Consider, female is pregnant & wants to abort her fetus, but the male sues to have custody of the fetus turned over to him since he can implant it into an artificial womb..
In a society where pregnancy can occur entirely outside of the human body, what will happen for abortion rights, custody disputes, etc.
All kinds of social, ethical and legal landmines waiting in that Pandora's box.
Uterine replicators were pretty central to the start of Bujold's series in '86 with one of her first Hugo's coming out of that initial plot. She's examined their impact from a few different angles over the years - although it's just background or a side line in many of the Vorkosigan novels. I'd say she gave it a far better treatment than Herbert (though he certainly got there first) who only ever managed to share a Hugo let alone win the four Bujold's got. Actually, I think I liked the collaborative work of his son with Anderson a bit more than most of the original Dune books (barring Dune itself), although their work is probably best accompanied by a SSRI.
One of the things I appreciate about SF is not just the imagination of the future as much as exploring the ethics and social implications of where we might end up.