Ectogenesis

[msimard]

Hello,

I would like to share my concerns regarding artificial womb. Many scientists have been developing this technique of extracorporeal pregnancy.
Within a society of control, scientists have been researching a method to eliminate any motherly presence in the unborn baby's environment.
From in vitro fertilization to his incubator birth, the baby did not have any human contact. Only the one from needles, tubes and gloves.
I am wondering what could be the consequences of this separation between the mother and the foetus on a human being?
I am also questioning the possible and unthinkable excesses of this invention : cloning, merchandizing, child's selection according to pre-defined criteria. Should we determine the limits of utilization to advanced prematures and forbid any other utilizations to prevent this technique to fall into the wrong hands.
I discovered this blog where a gynecologist analyses this topic. Very interesting. He provides a lot of information regarding the advanced searches on artificial womb.
http://ectogenese.canalblog.com
I also found out about a facebook page questioning this topic : let's think together about artificial womb.

What do you think?

[domokunrox]

From an ethical standpoint, it depends on the intent.

My initial response is negative. I have little confidence that the intent of man is for a pro life purpose.
You mention clones and immediately the first thought in my mind is people wanting to harvest organs or another eugenics program. Then comes the backlash of scientists thinking they are God or that life can be given without God. That whole mess and probably lots of other things we can think of.

The only positive we can get out of this is if the intent of this technology is for women who are at an extreme health risk and instead can pay for this artificial womb as part of their family planning. It would be truly nice if this was used to glorify God and embrace life. Unlikely though in this secular society, unfortunely.

[msimard]

I tottally agree with you. This is why I believe that the creation of a code of ethics regarding ectogenesis is NECESSARY. Or scientific experiences such as ectogenesis could be used for the wrong reasons.

[Ivellious]

Something tells me that the "evil anti-God scientists" aren't trying to eliminate the natural course of pregnancy from human kind...

[wrain62]

Something tells me that the "evil anti-God scientists" aren't trying to eliminate the natural course of pregnancy from human kind...

the people who develop the process ussually are not. But the people who abuse powers like this are not the ones ussually that develop the abused process. I think it is too easy too abuse. With SCNT used that is going to be used in cell treatment (your own stem cell are a lot better for you than another person's stem cells, and you can get your own most easily by using SCNT) and an artificial womb aperson can make clones of himself by himself. It is immoral to put your clone into a womb, but if it can be done more easily with artificial wombs then it is unstoppable. It is scary to know that it is can almost be done with a surrogate mother today if somebody decided to develop SCNT embryos for this purpose.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Something tells me that the "evil anti-God scientists" aren't trying to eliminate the natural course of pregnancy from human kind...

the people who develop the process ussually are not. But the people who abuse powers like this are not the ones ussually that develop the abused process. I think it is too easy too abuse. With SCNT used that is going to be used in cell treatment (your own stem cell are a lot better for you than another person's stem cells, and you can get your own most easily by using SCNT) and an artificial womb aperson can make clones of himself by himself. It is immoral to put your clone into a womb, but if it can be done more easily with artificial wombs then it is unstoppable. It is scary to know that it is can almost be done with a surrogate mother today if somebody decided to develop SCNT embryos for this purpose.

Good point wrain, It send shivers up my spine.

They will probably say the end justify's the mean's and that it is not really life until it leaves the womb, albeit artificial.


Dan

[Ivellious]

To answer the initial questions though...

To this point I haven't really found any data to support health or emotional problems from "test tube babies", to use a crude term. The idea isn't to simply remove motherhood from our society, but rather give infertile couples or women who may have serious complications if they got pregnant a chance to reproduce using their own DNA. The parenting after "birth" is obviously the more important side of things. A mother may be less attached to the child during the time where she typically would be pregnant...but any couple who wanted a child but could not and wanted it badly enough to go to this option probably isn't going to stop caring about the baby just because she isn't carrying it around. Take fathers, for instance...do all fathers not feel attached to their kids just because they weren't pregnant? Of course not.

Cloning and gene-selection are completely separate subjects here...Cloning can take place inside the womb too, so just because we refine the extra corporeal pregnancy doesn't improve cloning at all. Gene selection is even more out there...Once again that could theoretically be done in the womb, so I don't know how this elevates that concern (though I agree that human cloning and gene/trait selection are highly immoral and should be discouraged if not illegal).

[Danieltwotwenty]

The idea isn't to simply remove motherhood from our society, but rather give infertile couples or women who may have serious complications if they got pregnant a chance to reproduce using their own DNA. The parenting after "birth" is obviously the more important side of things.

So many children in the world with no parents, I don't understand why IVF (or God forbid ectogenesis) is the first option.
So many viable fertilised eggs are just flushed down the drain once the female becomes pregnant (abortion) and the same I imagine would be the case for ectogenesis.
This is a seriously immoral technology.

[Ivellious]

The irony of your first two statements is that you advocate for adoption to remove the need for couples to use IVF (a stance I don't totally disagree with) but you also bash abortion. You agree there are already too many children without homes, but you also advocate for drastically adding to that number. Curious predicament in that cycle.

I would just say that I understand that it is perfectly natural for people to want children of their own making, of their own flesh and blood. I would not want to discourage or make it impossible for them to fulfill that desire by eliminating the possibility if they cannot reproduce conventionally. That's my stance on it anyway.

[Danieltwotwenty]

he irony of your first two statements is that you advocate for adoption to remove the need for couples to use IVF (a stance I don't totally disagree with) but you also bash abortion.

How exactly is it ironic, as I don't see any irony? What I think is strange is that you can abort a fetus willy nilly when there are childless people in the world, maybe instead of abortion they should think about adoption and give the child a chance at life.
I am not "bashing" abortion, as a Christian I am condemning it as murder, here are all the answers to any questions http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/abort.html

I would just say that I understand that it is perfectly natural for people to want children of their own making, of their own flesh and blood. I would not want to discourage or make it impossible for them to fulfill that desire by eliminating the possibility if they cannot reproduce conventionally. That's my stance on it anyway.

I agree with you on one part only, the fact that it is natural for people to want children with their own gene's, what is un-natural is the process of IVF where viable fertilised eggs are aborted because the couple no longer need them. It seems like a selfish process, selfish to the children who do not have parents and selfish to the aborted fertilised eggs.

Dan

[Ivellious]

The irony is simply that you would advocate for adoption (as opposed to IVF) on the basis that there are numerous children without homes, but in the same breath you advocate for eliminating abortion, which would drastically increase children in need of homes. Which is kind of fueling the problem that you pose a possible solution for, yes?

Well, to be fair to those couples and their unfertilized eggs...If they are using IFV those eggs would, simply put, never ever be used anyway. The couple is only using IVF because they otherwise could not use any of those eggs. So, basically, those other eggs were just going to get flushed out anyway, so I don't see the big deal there.

As far as you being opposed to "unnatural" medical advances...Nearly every single medical advance is in fact unnatural. They boost our survival, our reproductive ability (like IVF), they alter our systems, they protect our systems...So disagreeing with a medical advance that helps people reproduce on the basis of us not being able to do it naturally is like saying "I disagree with modern birthing techniques and the sterilization/medicines that make it possible because we can't do those without unnatural processes." Both of them help us reproduce. One helps the reproduction process begin, the other helps it end safely for the mother and child. Both are completely unnatural.

[Danieltwotwenty]

The irony is simply that you would advocate for adoption (as opposed to IVF) on the basis that there are numerous children without homes, but in the same breath you advocate for eliminating abortion, which would drastically increase children in need of homes. Which is kind of fueling the problem that you pose a possible solution for, yes?

Well I don't know the figures, does abortion outweigh IVF treatments I don't know but that is besides the point, If people were more responsible for their own bodies there would be no need for abortion. So your saying in essence that we require abortion to keep population down? How about closing you legs or keeping it in your pants, if you are not responsible enough to use protection or can't wait until you are married and the time you want to have kids then don not have sexual intercourse. People need to start taking responsibility for their actions. You can't draw comparisons between the two issues, I only referenced abortion because it was relevant to the ectogenesis debate that also goes for adoption, other than that adoption and abortion remain two separate issues. One does not cancel out the other as there are many sub issues to both problems, you are over simplifying the problem.

Well, to be fair to those couples and their unfertilized eggs...If they are using IFV those eggs would, simply put, never ever be used anyway. The couple is only using IVF because they otherwise could not use any of those eggs. So, basically, those other eggs were just going to get flushed out anyway, so I don't see the big deal there.

Not true they fertilise many eggs then implant some of those, others are chucked out that have already been fertilised.
The big deal is they are fertilised and viable human lives which are flushed away aka abortion.

As far as you being opposed to "unnatural" medical advances...Nearly every single medical advance is in fact unnatural. They boost our survival, our reproductive ability (like IVF), they alter our systems, they protect our systems...So disagreeing with a medical advance that helps people reproduce on the basis of us not being able to do it naturally is like saying "I disagree with modern birthing techniques and the sterilization/medicines that make it possible because we can't do those without unnatural processes." Both of them help us reproduce. One helps the reproduction process begin, the other helps it end safely for the mother and child. Both are completely unnatural.

I am not disagreeing with a medical advance because it is un-natural, I was disagreeing with the process that aborts fertilised eggs as clearly stated in my post and that includes ectogenesis.


Dan