Reproduction in a world that doesn’t age

One of the main concerns that people have when there is a discussion about radical longevity enhancement is that if people stop dying of old age, population is going to explode and cause a major overpopulation problem. I believe this fear to be unfounded, for many reasons. First, it would certainly be important to define what overpopulation actually is. Overpopulation could be defined as the moment in a population growth where the productivity of the environment can no longer sustain the population growth. In fruit flies or other simple being in a closed, controlled environment, it is typically shown that population will grow exponentially until there is no more resources available, at which point the population drops dramatically as every member starves to death. It is obvious that we wouldn’t want to see such a scenario happen to human civilizations, which would seem to indicate that a warning against overpopulation might be wise. After all, there has been a faster than exponential growth of human population since the industrial revolution. Are we doomed to death by starvation?

First and foremost, contrary to fruit flies in a glass box filled with sugar, our food sources are renewable. Not only are they renewable, but the productivity has been growing over the years, and will probably keep doing so as technologies allow us to generate food in a more sustainable way than they do right now. Non-renewable resources, such as gas, oil and minerals might become more of a problem in the future if the population keeps growing, especially if we don’t find a way to use them more sparingly or to find renewable alternatives.

However, I don’t believe that the populations will keep growing at the kind of rates we have been seeing in the last decades. Especially if there is going to radical longevity enhancements.

I believe it won’t be a problem because of trend that has already been observed among developed countries, which is called the demographic transition theory. It has been around for a while and so far its predictions have been following reality relatively closely. Basically, populations can be described in three categories: Those with high deaths rate and high birth rates, those whose death rates have lowered but have kept high birth rates and finally populations with low birth rates and low death rates. The first group is characteristic of pre-modern societies, where childhood mortality is still very high and people don’t generally have access to modern hygiene and medical technology. The second group generally includes the developing countries where the death rates are lowering as a result of better access to the different technologies, but where birth rate is still very low. The final group, which includes pretty much includes every modern westernized countries are populations the lowest death rates as a result of their very high standards of living, but that are also having less children than any other population.

The explanations for the lower birth rates are numerous. As people live with better conditions, it becomes much easier to become individualists and having a big family no longer is a priority, since it effectively become possible for an individual to take care of themselves on their own. Easier access to contraception is also characteristic of these societies, and they are generally viewed as a positive measure for someone to take in their lives. People have other priorities than having children and getting married to have a family is no longer the main goal of many people. There is also a rise in the numbers of same-sex couples or couples who chose not to have children and it is less and less seen as something that is stigmatized.

Furthermore, if longevity enhancement were to become more popular, I believe the desire to have children would decline even more. For what would the point be in having children if you know for a fact that, a hundred years from now, you would be just as likely as any of your children to still be alive and active in society? Surely some people would still want to have a child or two, but I don’t believe that this would be a problem at all. After all, longevity enhancement through the medical treatment against degenerative aging would certainly help us to live longer, but it wouldn’t grant us immortality. People would still die from car accidents, rare sickness and whatever else that wouldn’t be covered by the longevity treatments.  Therefore, I honestly don’t think overpopulation in civilisations that have access to better lifespans would be a problem. We would simply have a lot less children than we do today.

That being said, I don’t have a crystal ball that can predict the future with certainty. Maybe there will be overpopulation problems to deal with if longevity technologies were to become a thing. However, from an ethical point of view, I believe it would be morally wrong to let billions of people die from degenerative aging simply because we couldn’t be sure that keeping them from dying wouldn’t bring about some challenge we would have to overcome as a society.

Sources:

Kasun, J. (1989). Too many people? The myth of excess population. Economic Affairs, 9(5), 15-18.

Cutas, D. E. (2008). Life extension, overpopulation and the right to life: against lethal ethics. Journal of medical ethics, 34(9), e7-e7.

Kirk, D. (1996). Demographic transition theory. Population studies, 50(3), 361-387.

The evolution of gender

In our world today, gender is considered by most to be one of the most fundamental characteristic of identity. It is one of the first information we share about ourselves and one of the first one we seek in someone else. It is so fundamental to our present understanding of people that most languages are effectively making it almost impossible to talk about someone without referring to their gender at some point. First it would make sense to define what gender is.

To the casual observer, gender is usually seen as something that is stable and constant in a person and thought to be divided between male and female.  This understanding of gender stems from the fact that most people are born with clearly different reproductive organs, which usually lead to the development of a sexual differentiation during puberty such as beard, breast and a size difference during puberty. Gender is also a common marker for the creation of a fertile heterosexual relationship. Evolutionarily wise, gender makes sense.

But what would gender look like in a post-human world? One where artificial wombs and pluripotent cell development allows for any two people of any gender to have children? One where physical strength wouldn’t be relevant and could easily be accessible to anyone of any gender via robotization of labor, cybernetics and bioenhencement. How could gender even make sense in such a world?

This is not the world we live in, but these questions are obviously relevant even today. Having children is no longer the unique goal of sexual partnership and the cisgender heterosexual couples is obviously no longer the unique model. And even to non-fertile couple or people, technologies of today are capable of providing the means for them to reproduce. What about gender roles, then? Are they still relevant today? As I’ve mentioned in my post about ectogenesis, the mysticism surrounding motherhood is certainly a big hindrance to achieve any reasonable discussion about the usefulness of women being the bearers of children’s responsibilities. Even in today’s world that attempts to be as equal as possible, the burden of domestic chores and domestic roles still falls again and always on women. As if the capacity to bear children was to be systematically to be associated with the keeping of the household.

So while gender roles and sexual orientation are slowly being put into question, what of gender itself? The existence of trans people and non-binary people are certainly the proof that gender is no more fixed than it is binary. However, even trans people have to deal with the cultural system of gender, where everything, names, language, clothing, hairstyles and, most of all, bodies are gendered. In that system, identifying outside de cisgender binary system of gender becomes so much harder when people are forced by their own language and experience to put a gender on every single person they meet. So even though gender itself has the ability to adapt into numerous forms, it is still shaped and often crushed by the cultural machine that keeps pushing its expectation on it.

All of this brings back to the question: Is gender bound to disappear? Given what we are witnessing in the world among LGBT and queer feminism movement, I think we could safely say that what’s going to happen is even better. While the binary gender system might still exist as a system of reference, people of all bodies and expression will become free to play with the codes and shape their world into whatever they want it to be. In this world, technology will simply be another way to express diversity. For this to happen, flexibility will have to be introduced in the system. Gender will have to be taken out of legal papers and language will have to adapt to accept that a person is not necessarily primarily defined by their gender. Such changes will take time and will certainly cause a lot of grunting and yapping, but the freedom gained from such a process would certainly outweigh any of the possible discomfort it might cause.

Technological eugenics

In my last post, I’ve discussed the more cultural aspect of eugenics, where I’ve explained that it’s already present in society through cultural norms and access to reproductive technology. This type of eugenics is, in my sense, the one that is closest to Galton’s idea of it, where “society” or the government should decide who gets to reproduce and who doesn’t. This is a more authoritarian vision of eugenics because restricts an individual’s access to reproduction. On the other hand, there can be a more individualistic approach to selective reproduction, and it would in my sense be much more respectful of people individual’s rights. An individualistic vision of Galton’s eugenics wouldn’t be very practical, given that It would simply come down to individual people choosing on their own if their genetic material is worthy of being passed down and then for them to choose the best possible genetic partner if they deem themselves worthy to create a  “better” next generation. I could certainly see a community of eugenic enthusiasts doing that, but I don’t believe it would be so different from what already happens when we choose our reproductive partners without necessarily having genetics in mind but still choosing people we find attractive based on desirable traits.

The one technology that turns the tables on individual eugenics is the possibility for genetic screening and embryo selection.  To put it simply, it is the idea that through in vitro fertilization, where multiple embryos are created, it would be possible to genetically test the embryos in order to get their genotypes, from which genes for desirable traits could be selected for or where the presence of genes for undesired traits could be selected against. This idea is usually demonized by the general public, with the typical scenario that people would all want a white blond boy with blue eyes. I believe this example to be a bit unfounded, in the sense that first, skin color is almost necessarily a combination of both parents; therefore, the only way to select against it would be to select the parent, which is something that hasn’t much to do with embryo selection. Second, I honestly have a hard time figuring out how it would be bad to have more blond hair or blue eyes in the next generation aside from an unfounded fear for the commodification of children’s traits, something that already exists when people select their partners in function of their appearance. In the end the only aspect of this scenario that I can imagine becoming a problem is if people start selecting abusively in favor of boys, something that is already happening with selective abortion and that is creating big society problems. However, I believe that the simplest way to prevent it would be to prevent by law geneticists from disclosing gender whenever the genotype is being analysed.

Outside from these critics, this type of eugenics would certainly be a good way to screen for genetic afflictions and to select against them before they become a problem. Sure, one might question the practical elimination of disabled people that it could entail, but unless it were to become mandatory to select against disability, it would still be possible for disabled people to have disabled children, if only by not using embryo selection at all. Considering that my vision of transhumanism is one where it would give more freedom to people, I believe it would be immoral to force it down on anyone. That being said, it would allow parents to be less stressed out about the possibility that their children might be afflicted with a genetic disease, especially if the said disease was known to be running in the family, and spare them from the difficulties of raising a sick or a disabled child when they might not be ready for it.

Outside of selection against undesirable traits, one of the perks of such a technique would be the ability to select in favor of some traits. For example, it could technically be possible to select in favor of a set of genes known to offer protection against some types of cancer. Another one would be to select in favor of genes that are highly correlated with intelligence. All these possibilities would in fact allow us to make sure that the second generation is better (in some aspects) than the first. As long as the technology is available to everyone and not only to a selected few wealthy people, I can only see that as something that goes in the interest of everyone, parents, children and society.

As interesting as this individual vision of eugenic is, it would still means that whatever change it would bring to society, and whatever “variety” of “better” individual it might create would still be limited by the painfully slow procession of generations. In his article about In vitro eugenics, Robert Sparrow (2013) discusses the possibility of creating multiple generations of embryo selections through the use of induced pluripotent cells. Indeed, he foresees the use of any cell to be turned into gametes, therefore making it possible to create multiple generations of embryos without having to wait for them to grow into a sexually mature person. In his assessment of the technology, he evaluates that up to 2 or 3 generations might be created every year, and suppose that, with every passing generation, it would be possible to select in favor of a “better” genotype, which would eventually allow for the creation of an artificially selected embryo that would hold as many desirable traits as possible.

The ethical implications of this are very delicate, and they involve the ethics of creating embryos for the sole purpose research and it raises the question of what is the person created through multiple generations of in vitro eugenics going to be like. One of the main concerns is about how these multiple induction of pluripotent cells and artificial creation of embryo might affect the epigenetics of cells, which might lead to non-viable or dangerously flawed embryos. This issue raises the question: If eugenicists were to create a “flawed” person, a failed experience, how are they supposed to deal with it if they only realize it after birth? The embryo would obviously turn into a person, both morally and legally and the implication of them living a life of suffering as a direct result of the human intervention would be morally unsound. Any attempt at in vitro eugenics should therefore only be done once all the implications of epigenetics were clearly understood and could be included in the assessment of which embryo would be selected for.

Furthermore, one of the main barriers to realizing in vitro eugenics is our understanding of the link that exists between genotype and phenotype. Once believed to be a “one gene=one trait” relationship, traits have now been proven to be the result of incredibly complex relationships between multiple genes, epigenetics and environment. Unless this relationship were to be fully understood, it would be practically impossible to select for desired traits since the trait itself might be encoded in a way that is too complex to be assessed.

I don’t believe eugenics to be morally bad in and by itself. What I do believe is that any technology that makes it possible should be properly framed in order to prevent the ethical hurdles they might create. I also believe that we should steer clear of any Galton type eugenics, which would force people to have children that are seen as “appropriate” for the need of society. Ultimately, I believe that it should rest into parent’s hand to make embryo selection a part of their reproductive strategy, just like it is up to them to choose their partners and to decide if they want to have children or not.

Sources

Sparrow, R. (2014). In vitro eugenics. Journal of medical ethics, 40(11), 725-731.

Wilkinson, S., & Garrard, E. (2013). Eugenics and the ethics of selective reproduction

Cultural eugenics

My post today is going to be about something I’ve already brushed in my two previous posts. In my Aldous Huxley’s example of a dystopia brought along in part by the artificial creation of perfectly adapted humans in an artificial womb, the most salient aspect might seem to be ectogenesis, which, when presented in such a dystopic environment, might seem like a pretty dehumanizing process. However, I think that the one thing that is the most morally revolting in this image of humans being created like cars on an assembly line is less the absence of a mother and more the fact that humans are being engineered and created on purpose to suit the needs of society. This practice comes from a selection process called eugenics. The idea of eugenics is typically attributed to Francis Galton who, inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution, suggested that the human species could be made better by artificially selecting those with more desirable traits such as intelligence or wealth while keeping other people, with “inferior” traits from breeding. To put it in very general words, eugenics can be defined as “making the gene pool of humans better”. This idea, born in 1883, was partly used by the Nazis to justify the killing of thousands of people, and I’m pretty sure that very few today would like to be associated to the Nazis by defending ideas of eugenics.

In my second post about ectogenesis, I have discussed the delicate moral issue of doctors having to take the decision about keeping a foetus alive after miscarriage, considering that such a foetus could lead to weakened human that could potentially live a life of suffering. This is an issue that is closely associated with eugenics, and one way that ectogenesis could be questioned as a technique because of its moral consequences. However, I believe that the mechanism of eugenics is already present in our present society as a form of cultural eugenics and that the technology that could make it more salient, such as the embryo selection from the “Brave new world” dystopia is mostly an extension of a process that’s been happening anyway.

The idea of eugenics was in part inspired by Galton’s half-cousin Darwin’s theory of natural and sexual selection. This theory basically states that in the natural world (of which humans are a part of), the selection of who gets to mate and who doesn’t isn’t random and that desirable traits will make it more likely that an individual will reproduce before they die. Natural selection is the process through which traits that give an individual more chances to survive will have more chances to be… well, alive when mating time comes. The second process, sexual selection, underline the fact that individual are actively choosing their own partners when it comes to reproduction and that in order to do so, they will choose those who have desirable traits. In that aspect, I believe that the basis for eugenics, to choose which individual gets to reproduce or not is but an attempt to consciously control something that already happens in nature.

While we might question the wisdom of trying to influence something nature is already doing (The good old nature is good argument), there is no doubt that it is already happening anyway through cultural norms and systemic oppressions that we are already seeing in the world. We already live in a world where popular culture, media and publicity is actively shaping people’s belief about who is “fuckable” or not. If you don’t find a sexual partner because society judges you unattractive, be it because of your skin color, disability, lack of resources or simply because you don’t fit in the typical model of beauty, then it is less likely that you are going to have children.

Furthermore, I believe that society encourages some even more salient forms of eugenics by reducing access to assisted reproduction techniques. Indeed, at least in Quebec, there has been a strong debate about who should have a free access to these techniques, and one of the predominant opinion was that only “medically infertile couples”, which is usually defined as a typical straight couple having trouble conceiving, should be allowed access. Concretely, it meant that it was considered that a single person capable of bearing a child or a lesbian couple where one of the women is fertile shouldn’t have access to this service on the ground that they could potentially “find a man to do the job”. Similarly, the practice of surrogate mothers, the only alternative for a single infertile person and for a completely infertile couple, especially a gay male couple, to have children has been even more vigorously shunned as woman’s exploitation, even in the cases where the surrogate mom was completely consenting. The general idea behind the discomfort is that “nature shouldn’t be tempered with”, which underlines that there is a natural “law” that people should follow in order to have the “right” to reproduce. Similarly, in many of these cases, it is seen as less of a problem if the people involved can pay the procedure on their own, which would in turn give a reproductive advantage to the wealthy.

Similarly, a commonly held belief is that in order to become a parent, whether through natural reproduction or through assisted reproduction technique, a couple should be able to prove that they can be decent parents. Since it is impossible to know before they actually have children if a person would in fact be a good parent (something which is already difficult to judge when they do have children), it means that such a measure would imply finding absolute factors which would decide if someone is going to be a good or a bad parent. Such factors would in all likeliness be strongly affected by wealth, education and access to care, which would obviously lead to a form of eugenics that wouldn’t be very far from Galton’s original idea.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that any form of eugenic practice should be under strong scrutiny, whether they are the result of a new technology or simply the result of the present access to present reproductive technologies and to parenthood. I’d also like to point out that while embryo selection is a budding technological application (more on this in later posts), selective abortion is a very common practice that is used in cases of multiple pregnancies (where the weakest foetus is often “reduced” to allow the others more chances of survival) and in cases of early detected genetic disabilities such as Down’s syndrome. It is also very commonly practiced on female foetus in some areas of the world where it is believed that having a girl puts too much of a burden on the family. I don’t consider eugenics to be essentially bad, but there is certainly a debate to be made about the present cultural norms that allow forms of it thrive.

To know more:

This is an awesome paper on the implication of eugenics, especially on the ethics of it technological applications (More to come later)

Wilkinson, S., & Garrard, E. (2013). Eugenics and the ethics of selective reproduction.

A paper about surrogacy and consent:

Oakley, J. (1992). Altruistic surrogacy and informed consent. Bioethics, 6(4), 269-287.

Foetal reduction

Depp, R., Macones, G. A., Rosenn, M. F., Turzo, E., Wapner, R. J., & Weinblatt, V. J. (1996). Multifetal pregnancy reduction: evaluation of fetal growth in the remaining twins. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology,174(4), 1233-1240.

Napolitano, R., & Thilaganathan, B. (2010). Late termination of pregnancy and foetal reduction for foetal anomaly. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 24(4), 529-537.

Yes, another wikepedia source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

The ethics of ectogenesis

Last week I have described how I think it would be plausible for us to see in the near future the coming up of partial, and eventually complete ectogenesis, which can be described has nurturing an embryo into a full grow foetus outside the natural womb. Since this is something that will likely become more and more plausible as the techniques for caring about premature babies get more and more sophisticated, it will raise an array of ethical concerns.

On the good side, and it will likely be one of its least controversial applications, it will allow to pretty much save any pregnancy from ending in a miscarriage if the foetus is healthy. While that might seem like a no brainer, even that aspect will require some moral thinking. Miscarriage tend to happen for a reason. Basically, in a natural womb, the foetus is having a fight with the mother’s womb in order to keep residency. If the foetus is too weak, the mom will “win” the fight and reject the baby. This brings into question about the ethics of raising a “weak” baby, one that “nature” would have eliminated. We could hypothesise that in many cases, it will simply be a matter of the mother’s body overreacting and rejecting the baby without any reason, but in those cases where it is actually caused by a weaker foetus, what should be done about it? There might still be a rejection from the natural womb, which would be one of the knacks that we would have to control properly, but what about that moment when we can nurture any foetus, no matter how damaged, into being born? This will bring the perilous ethical concern where a doctor is going to be forced to take the decision on whether the baby should live or not. And if it should live, is it right to let a damaged human into the world while knowing that “nature” would have let go of it before birth? This is a case that will depend on whether you consider the foetus a human being or not, and if you consider you have a moral duty to save them or not. One thing is sure, this subject will have to be discussed, and it will most likely be one of the earliest discussions to happen as technology makes it easier and easier to “save” a prematurely born baby.
Which brings to the next moral issue that such a technology might bring, and that is the issue of what is going to happen with abortion? Unlike in the case of a miscarriage,  the chances are that the foetus can be saved will be much higher, therefore changing the dynamics of the debate between “abortion or complete carriage” and turning it into a debate of what should be done with the aborted foetus. While I expect that many people among the “pro-lifers” will still be strongly biased toward the mother keeping the child at any cost, there will likely be a faction that will start advocating for saving every foetus that has been removed through abortion by ectogenesis. Under some consideration, if the ethical imperative for allowing abortion is that women should have absolute choice over their own body, then it could be interpreted that once out of her body, the foetus is no longer hers and has become an independent human being that should be saved, especially if it is still healthy enough to have a normal development. However, I believe that many of the classical arguments from the abortion debate will still hold: What about the trauma of raped women who will live in the knowledge that the child of their aggressor is out there? What about the life of the child who is going to grow without parents? Is it really wise to live in a world that would generate so many orphans? I personally believe that such an issue could be solved with a solution comparable to the “unplugging” of a comatose patient: Where the family has legal ground to “unplug” such a dependant patient, a mother should have the choice not to use the services of an artificial womb. All these elements lead me to believe that the debate about abortion, while transformed by technology, will still be present.

On a more positive ground, complete ectogenesis would provide a lot of opportunities to people who can’t bear children. Whether it is for a single infertile person or for an infertile couple (gay or straight), this technology will allow bypassing the ethical issues of surrogacy and let these people have a child of their own. While there is no doubt that there will be people who will object to it on the ground that “A child should know the warmth of a mother”, I’m pretty sure every physical elements of a mother’s womb can be simulated to ensure that the foetus is as stimulated as it would have been in a natural one. When it comes to the link between mother and child, I am convinced that it would be possible for parents to visit the growing foetus on a regular basis. If seeing your unborn child slowly turning into a human being with your own eyes doesn’t create a strong bond between parents and children, I don’t know what will. The idea that it takes a woman’s “magic” for a child to grow normally has more ground in mysticism than anything else as long as the technique allows for a good enough reproduction of the natural womb. One legit concern could be that an uncaring parent, or a separating couple, could simply decide to abandon the child to the hospital and never show up on pick up day. However, such an issue would be easily solved by a legally constraining contract that would force any parent who takes the service to care for the child. The one issue that I think would be the most concerning is that of the availability of the technique. If the costs are high, it is likely that only the wealthy will have access to such a technology, therefore making the gap between the rich and the poor class even higher. In my opinion, a society that has the technical means for ectogenesis should also have the social means to make it available to anyone who needs it.

Finally, I think that the most revolutionary application of such a technology, if truly made available for everyone, is to give the potential to any woman to have a child without the health and economic burden of pregnancy. While it would still be necessary to care for the child once it were born, I believe that removing women as essential for child rearing has the potential to dramatically change the way society sees the place of women and would do a lot to bring equality in man-woman relationships. The symbol of child bearing has been repeatedly used to mysticise and oppress women into being the only people capable of child care and such a technology would go a long way to prove that line of thinking wrong. In my opinion, this could possibly be the greatest benefit that ectogenesis would bring to society.

In conclusion, ectogenesis is a procedure that would create many ethical debates among society, but in the end, if it is given as an option to every potential parent, I believe it has the potential to change de world for the better.

The artificial womb

In 1932, Aldous Huxley has made it one of the symbol of his « Brave new world » dystopia, the ultimate sign of dehumanisation in the sight of lines of artificially created human. Through his Fordism type of fake Utopia, humans were just a commodity for society, the more the better, made in chain to better be servient to society. Even nowadays, the idea of ectogenesis, growing a foetus outside the human body raises many an eyebrow. Stuck in the gap between In vitro fertilization, where a human egg is fertilized and the first stage of an embryo and the science of neonatal cares where premature babies are being taken care of, it seems that the process of growing a foetus outside a human body still holds a lot of its sacred imagery, to the point where the concept is never even brought in any circle I know of except for some insightful law makers who feel like we should get ready for the moment when it’s going to be possible to have a baby without a mom.

If the idea seems foreign, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been attempted, and the first attempt was conducted in 1982 in Italy before being basically banned by scared politicians. In order to successfully allow a foetus to grow big enough to be able to live on its own, a number of challenges must be overcome. First, in order to be fed properly, the embryo needs to implant in a tissue that closely resemble the endometrium, which is basically the lining of the uterus that contain the blood vessels that are going to feed the growing foetus. Then comes the obvious issue of providing the tissue, and therefore the foetus with proper nutrition, oxygen and hormone levels until the baby can be safely delivered. There are many way this can be accomplished even by today’s technology. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to grow endometrial cells on a scaffold that mimics the uterus shape and that it could be used to create an artificial uterus.  There have also been experiments where it has been possible to sustain a goat foetus for a few weeks in an incubator that reproduced the uterus and placenta with amniotic fluid and that provided blood. While the technology is not yet quite there, especially when it comes to nutrition and hormone levels given that the balance is so delicate, computer advances in monitoring and controlling the release of such elements could allow for an automatic system that could mimic the environment of a natural womb. One element that wouldn’t be a problem is the oxygenation through an artificial lung, which is already widely used with premature babies and the removal of wastes, which is already available through dialysis. The only thing that is really missing for this to happen is to put enough energy in fine tuning the details of the delicate balance of what it is that allows a foetus to grow to maturity. We might not be there yet, but I can’t help seeing this coming, if only as a method to save prematurely born babies earlier and earlier. In the field, the possibility of liquid ventilation and artificial placenta is already discussed as a mean to make “miscarriage” more and more of a foreign concept.

In conclusion, it seems clear that the gap between the first steps of in vitro fertilization and the treatment of premature babies is growing smaller as technology advances and that the lawmakers will soon be forced to consider the ethical implication of ectogenesis, be it partial or complete. The point is that the artificial womb is within our technological grasp as a species, and it is not that far away. In my next blog post, I will discuss the ethical considerations that such an achievement would bring up. If you have any question or concern regarding the morality of such a technology, make sure to share it with me and I’ll do my best to address them in my next post.

Sources:

Simonstein, F. (2006). Artificial reproduction technologies (RTs)–all the way to the artificial womb?. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 9(3), 359-365.

Bulletti, C., Palagiano, A., Pace, C., Cerni, A., Borini, A., & de Ziegler, D. (2011). The artificial womb. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,1221(1), 124-128.