ECTOGENESIS Development of Articial Wombs Technology's threat to abortion rights

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | August 24, 2003 | Sacha Zimmerman

[DesignerChick]

Back in January, the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America held a dinner in Washington to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision.

But the event was far from celebratory, with speaker after speaker warning that a woman's right to choose is in grave danger. "For the first time since Roe vs. Wade, anti-choice politicians control the presidency and both houses of Congress," NARAL Pro-Choice America President Kate Michelman said in a typical speech. "The Supreme Court is one vote away from dismantling the right to choose."

[RightWhale]

This article was already posted a couple days ago. Poster response was kinda sparse then, too. This is an extension of in vitro fertilization. The real disjointing of our moral articulations will come when we start cloning humans and parts of humans, but by then there won't be much interest in anything but satisfying our hedonic nature.

[LiteKeeper]

Question: woman's right to choose what?

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Meaningless. We already have viable survival outside the womb in frozen embryos.

Nothing will destroy Roe v Wade short of a human life amendment, and I will bet that certain parts of the country will declare independence from the United States rather than submit to that. The rest is paranoid ranting from NARAL. "One vote away," my butt. If one vote switches, another will switch back.

[ffusco]

Frozen embryos are viable human lifeforms , but an unfertilized embryo is not a human being.

[BearArms]

Meaningless. We already have viable survival outside the womb in frozen embryos.

I wonder, what is keeping the Congress from banning the destruction of human embryos created in labs? This would not interfere with the right to abortion at all, as far as I can tell.

[Servant of the Nine]

Ectogenesis is the answer to both sides desires.

A woman gets an abortion because she wants to be rid of the baby. Induced labor and ectogenesis provides that without killing anything.

So9

[SoothingDave]

Frozen embryos are viable human lifeforms , but an unfertilized embryo is not a human being.

An "unfertilized embryo" is an oxymoron. What, exactly, are you trying to say?

SD

[SoothingDave]

Ectogenesis is the answer to both sides desires.

You would think. Except the "pro-choice" side doesn't just want to be relieved of the responsibility of parenthood. They want a dead baby.

SD

[Servant of the Nine]

Ectogenesis is the answer to both sides desires.

You would think. Except the "pro-choice" side doesn't just want to be relieved of the responsibility of parenthood. They want a dead baby.

That is true of the loudmouthed lunatic fringe.
Most women who get abortions are just panicked, feeling trapped and not thinking rationally enough to figure another solution.

So9

[SoothingDave]

Most women who get abortions are just panicked, feeling trapped and not thinking rationally enough to figure another solution.

Oh, sure. And given the choice where there was no extra expense or trauma, most women would rather their offspring be brought up by someone and loved.

It is only the "hard core," as you note, that see the opportunity to eliminate the killing of unborn children wihtout hapering any woman's "liefstyle" as a bad thing.

SD

[only1percent]

Ectogenesis would have no effect upon Roe or Doe. Those decisions are not based upon the ability of the fetus to survive without burdening the mother. They are based upon the supposed wrongness of the government or the father interfering in a decision properly left to a woman and her doctor. Roe and Doe contemplate no consideration for the rightness or wrongness or adequacy of that decision, nor require any weighing of alternatives. There being better alternatives than the old ones (keeping the baby, adoption) wouldn't change the legal reasoning.

[only1percent]

I should clarify that reading Roe, alone, would lead one to think that moving the line of "viability" to at or near the point of conception might make a difference. Roe read with Doe, however, make clear that the privacy right of a woman and her doctor to determine what is right for her "health" make earlier viability a distinction without a difference.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

but an unfertilized embryo is not a human being.>>

Well, that might be true, except that there is no such thing as an unfertilized embryo. Just a dead one.

[BearArms]

The courts would ultimately have to weigh in on this particular matter, of course, since ectogenesis was not a reality in 1973. But if it comes to be that a pregnancy can be aborted without causing the death of the embryo or fetus, it will be exceedingly difficult to explain why it would be in the woman's best health interest for the life to be destroyed rather than simply removed.

In any case, it's easy to see that the pro-choice movement will have a much harder time eliciting public support for allowing abortions that kill, when there are available those that do not. In such a transformed political and technological landscape, it's not hard to imagine the prospect of a constitutional amendment increasing significantly in likelyhood. However you slice it, this is a very positive development for the pro-life side.

[Jack Black]

OK. Lets say this technology is developed, works and is deployed. Now every abortion becomes a (tax payer funded) out-of-womb exo-pregnancy. Wow, bet that's not gonna cost too much. The ditsy broads who are too lazy or stupid to use birth control will feel even LESS need to worry about it. It so wonderful, they can fornicate like rabbits and the government (because they are already on AFDC, Food Stamps, Section 8 and have a government provided social worker helping them run their pathetic lives) will take care of it all. No need to even feel the twinge of guilt that used to go with abortion! Great! How many abortions are there in the USA each year? Roughly one million. Are there homes for one million more babies each year? If not are we going to have Federal Exo-Children Centers? How will these kids vote at age 18?

Well, it will probably be too expensive for any but the rich for the near future anyway.

It would be a great option to save kids in different situations, but I think it would create other problems. No matter what can be built will be.

Get ready for Exo-Baby!

[BearArms]

Get ready for Exo-Baby!

LOL! I'll count you as an optimist.