Slashdot Mirror
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?"
As long as they don't all have the surname "Fett"...
I keep thinking of how sci-fi writers sometimes get behind the "now". In Dune they had "Axlotyl tanks" to grow clones in, and it turned out that these "tanks" were human women. And Dune was set 1000 years in the future. Are they going to call these artificial wombs Axlotyl Tanks?
Star Trek did the same thing when McCoy gave Kirk reading glasses, and the CrystaLens came out about fifteen years later.
Free Martian Whores!
"Artificial Womb" sounds so awkward. How about axlotl tank?
Get off my lawn.
Louise Brown, born in 1978. That would make it more than 40 years ago, not more than 50.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Oops. Bad math. *Almost 35* years ago.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Is there a baby shortage we should be concerned about?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Forget the artificial womb, who's working on an artificial vagina?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.
Should we use these to decant Alphas or Epsilon semi-morons?
If a government wants to prohibit abortion, they can just require that she give up her embryo or fetus for adoption when she terminates the pregnancy, with the state picking up the tab over and above the cost of an abortion.
This assumes, of course, that removing the embryo or fetus in a way that allows transplant to an artificial womb doesn't put the mother at a greater health risk than an abortion.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Born in a test tube.
Nurtured in a plastic womb.
Raised by a telescreen.
Now another soldier for democracy, freedom and the American way...
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.
This will be primarily used by those who can not conceive and those who cannot carry to term. That would be a huge intervention in the evolutionary process, as those are the people we DON'T want to reproduce.
Really? Artificial wombs, FFS? Look around you, Dr. Fertility. The natural wombs are pumping out product at a terrifyingly prodigious rate with no help from you. Maybe you can work on some other organ that we maybe need to stay alive or something?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
You, uh... never read the rest of the series did you?
Because that's a horrible way to talk about your wife. The Bene Tleilax are masters of the genome, their Axolotl tanks are women.
But of course, if we grow humans in an artificial womb, they wouldn't really alive until we take them out at the end of the 9-month procedure, right?
If you are referring to abortion poltics, the term you are looking for is "legal person."
There is no question that a zygote is biologically human and biologically alive.
Legal person-hood is another matter. This is granted - and taken away - by the common consensus of society or in some cases, the edict of a government or dictator that doesn't reflect the consensus of society. Even ignoring "artificial legal persons" like corporations, a society can grant legal personhood - the state of having the rights of a living person - on sufficiently-intelligent animals or non-earth-originated sentient aliens or even sentient human-created life forms (e.g. computer programs, androids, etc.) if it wants to. If it wants to, it can also take away or deny the personhood of living humans who are too young (e.g. not born yet, or not old enough to be more self-aware than non-human animals), or severely mentally retarded or severely brain-damaged. We can also take away personhood by declaring someone dead even if they are still breathing. Most Western countries do this today when they declare someone "brain dead" if their autonomic systems are working but there is no other brain function.
By the way, I am NOT advocating denying anyone who has already been born the status of "person" for reasons of mental or physical incapacity short of brain death. If the society I live in makes this a common practice, I'll probably move.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why would you say that?
I would think though this could nearly eliminate unwanted pregnancy. Everyone can be on birth control and enter into a legal binding contract when they want to order a child.
Clearly, no. But this is beside the point. Maybe it will be one day. And in the much nearer future, it will be just the thing we will turn to because we start having ethical problems with renting the wombs of poor women in India who presently serve as surrogates for fertility-challenged rich couples.
But for me, the real sci-fi potential of this technology is in interstellar colonization. The idea is that frozen genetic material can survive a long trip much better than any living organism, especially if we're talking about slow trips that might take centuries. However, with proper shielding and error control, a lab that can produce artificial wombs and gestate babies should be much easier, technologically. I'm guessing that by the end of this century, all the pieces will be in place: An artificial womb, an AI that can operate it, correct preservation techniques, and an AI parenting program that does a more ethical job of parenting that many human parents who are still allowed to keep their kids. That, together with AI school, basically makes for a highly portable civilization reproduction package. Only the first generation would need to be raised by pure technology, although I'm sure that since they have the technology, they would want to keep using it to grow the size of the colony and add to their genetic diversity.
By the time you "make" the clones, raise them, educate them, train them, the cost would be astronomical for an army or any worthwhile force. Plus, new soldiers would be at least 16 years out, to be generous.
Meanwhile you can crank out robots by the truckload for a fraction of the cost. They have much simpler logistical requirements in terms of food, housing, and other amenities. More durable, better endurance, can be repaired. We're a lot closer to robot soldiers than clone soldiers too.
=Smidge=
A Womb with a view.
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
From the planet Ix...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
You need to take your medicine. Clearly it wore off.
This is the next generation in fertility treatments, not some way to eliminate the female sex.
This isn't about fertility treatments. IVF is about fertility treatments. Granted some woman cannot carry a pregnancy to term, but in those cases there are surrogates. This is about freeing woman from the so called bondage of having to be pregnant at all.
Of course rich women who want to keep their figure will want to go this route.
If they want to have children without stretchmarks and weight gain, this is perfect, cost be damned.
It will be the new status symbol.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
What landmines? It will be the same as it is now, except that the woman have to give the father a chance to keep the aborted fetus alive. Any further custody disputes will be the same as they are now.
but is it really feasible, desirable or even affordable for the majority of Earth's population?"
No, yes, no.
The majority of the planet's population is still living near the poverty line. What they have they spend on food and shelter and other essentials. But in that same demographic, death in childbed is still very real for both mother and child, so something less risky would be desirable.
From a global perspective, hower, low population is not exactly a problem we are having. So this should not be about producing more humans.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There is no compelling contextual evidence for the age or gender of the original poster. For all we know, sexconker might very well be a young girl with a geeky streak who happens to like gourmet ice cream and pretty boys with good pipes. I sang baritone in school. An i've been told i clean up well. Anyone in SF bay area interested in starting an a Capella group? We can call ourselves "Super Cache", or maybe go with "Beowulf". What kind of name is likely to attract the attention of the geek girl among /.ers? I know! "The GNU Directions"!
========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
By the year 2020 eh? This has been discussed in the 1960's.... In the year 6565 You won't need no husband, won't need no wife You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too From the bottom of a long glass tube Now it's been ten thousand years, man has cried a billion tears For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday
First successful *human* IVF.
The first successful IVF pregnancy & birth was in 1959 - a team at the Worcester Foundation, lead by Dr. Min Chueh Chang, successfully gave birth to a rabbit.
Well, OK, they didn't give birth to a rabbit per se - obviously another rabbit did - but they certainly had a hand in it, as it were...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Why? Is there seriously a need to come up with new methods other than good old fashioned fucking?
I don't think many people have a problem with the fucking, but rather with the subsequent 9-ish months of issues.
9 months? More like 18+ years. And that assumes said child moves away to college right after high school, gets a good job right out of college, etc.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
As a futurist, I imagine star ships full with artificial wombs in frozen state.
Leaves up the question how to educate the babes when they are decanted.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Is there seriously a need to come up with new methods other than good old fashioned fucking?
No - if you consider humanity only as a homogeneous mass of animal flesh.
As someone married to a mother, let me give an alternative view : Yes, definitely. Ever witnessed a birth, even with an epidural ? Or just stood in the same building of the hospital maternity ward ? Every 10 babies or so you will hear the screams. While many young women, and most men have this romanticized notion of birth (for obvious reasons), but you'll find a much different view among women who've already given birth.
On another note...when asking "why"....is it like we have some type of population problems? Not enough people being born?
No, it's because individuals have this crazy instinct to fulfil their biological urges by propagating their DNA.
Actually yes, we do. The human birthrate is falling worldwide, right now still heading to overpopulation in the short term, as the total number of young people is still increasing (the number of babies is very close to stagnation, and will soon start to drop though). However, if the decreasing fertility trends spread around the globe (and they are), once we hit ~2055, the number of humans alive will fall off a cliff, which will not be a desirable outcome at all. A little before that, so many people will become pensioners it won't be funny at all. It won't be localized anywhere, it'll be global. Think recession, but with no cheap mexicans/asians/africans to import at all, and every country having the exact same problem.
Regardless of how far robotics will be along at the time (and there's always the chance it won't be far enough along at all), do you really think having a country's population drop by ~8% per year for 2 decades will lead to stable countries ?
So it would be very prudent to start breeding humans, which imho is only unethical if they are somehow treated as inferior to the rest of us, in 10-15 years in relatively large numbers (hundreds of thousands a year). We can still let the total population drop, but slowly, in a way that countries, nations and we ourselves might actually survive.
Kneel before Zod! Now, lay down before Zod. Now using your lower abdominals, raise your legs and hold on a five count before Zod! One before Zod! Two before Zod!
Let's hear it for reproduction without all the negative effects on your woman's lady parts!
An artificial womb might not primarily be interesting for human reproduction, but for example in conservational biology to re-establish near extinct species, this could be a great tool! Coupled with the technologies of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), where one can de-differentiate a mature somatic cell and then differentiate it into sperm and egg cells we could also generate a large progeny even from a limited number of individuals. Further, the same technology could theoretically be used to surpass many of the reproductive species barriers and make it possible to generate completely new hybrid species. Especially since one could do repeated cycles of embryonic stem cell to egg/sperm differentiations in vitro, one could in this way generate completely new species out of invitro hybrid breeding. I have no idea how far apart species can be with this method, but regulations probably would have to be put in place to avoid generation of new sub-species of humans generated by in vitro hybrid breeding with the other great apes. Who knows... perhaps it would even be possible to breed crocodiles and birds and get some sort of approximation of dinosaurs using this method...
Taking this question entirely seriously for a moment and assuming you were too.
IVF is popular because something like 1 in 7 couples have difficulty conceiving naturally. Even having managed to conceive something like 70-80% of conceptions fail to result in a viable pregnancy because they don't attach properly to the uterine lining. It's part of the reason that even women who aren't on birth control don't have a pregnancy every month they are 'fertile' and have sex.
Potentially the use of artificial wombs would reduce the instance of miscarriage and improve the success rates of IVF beyond what is currently normal. There are plenty of people out there who would like to have children for whom 'good old fashioned fucking' isn't a viable solution.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World