In loco parentis ___ Artificial wombs might end abortion

Worldmagazine ^ | 01 November 2003 | Gene Edward Veith

[spunkets]

This is a halloween thread right?

[ellery]

This would have the effect of bringing home the main issue, that both parties to sex are responsible for the consequence of procreation.

Hm. Is this the main issue? I thought the main issue was babies dying vs. babies living. Responsibility with sex is to be desired, but I wouldn't call it the main issue in this debate.

[Fzob]

Huxley, you were a visionary.

I recall Herbert had similiar visions in the Dune series.

[Billthedrill]

Women would be obsolete.

Well, no. The schema for sexual reproduction doesn't change, it's still X and Y chromosomes and it had better stay that way if all of the mechanisms for recombination are to maintain genetic diversity within the population. Where the baby grows changes. The challenge will be to provide an artificial womb with all the inherent advantages of a separate human being wrapped around it. This isn't trivial whether you hold that that system originated with God, or evolution, or both. It's a good solution in ways that we don't realize yet, hence supplanting it will call for requirements we also don't realize yet. Risky stuff to be playing with, IMHO. The result is a kid with the limitations built into our own engineering learning curve ("I'm sorry, Bob, but your womb was the unpatched v1.0 release, you're gonna have to learn to live with that third nostril.")

I am reminded of the very cute toss-off at the end of Joe Haldeman's brilliant The Forever War wherein the public announcement notes with surprise that the protagonists have gone off to produce a child "in the old mammalian way." Us mammals are a pretty resilient bunch.

[Lorianne]

It is the main issue and has always been the main issue with regard to abortion(legal or illegal) and infanticide and child abandoment. Babies dying is the byproduct of not addressing the responsibility issues.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

I've been wondering for many years now how many women who choose to have their unborn babies killed would choose to do so if they didn't have to carry it to term or support it thereafter. We may soon find out when this technology forever erases the semantic distinction between abortion and infanticide.

[Lorianne]

I don't think it will end the abortion debate but I do believe this technology will effectively re-align the debate back to where it should have been in the first place, ie. it will force the issue of responsibility, which we've forever swept under the rug.

If such technology were availabe, and no more invasive than an abortion, it would likely be more expensive, both to perform and to maintain the fetus /baby and subsequent child. The question will then shift to "who pays?" this cost. Society? The bio-parents? Or do we circumvent costs by doing the more convenient thing for all, terminating the fetus?

I fear it will show us all as hypocrites as we will undoubtedly choose the latter over paying the price of keeping feti alive to maturation, and possibly beyond that in goverment run orphanages, if they cannot be adopted.

There will be much still to debate, but hopefully we will debate the REAL issues, not fake ones that we have so far amused ourselves with.

[pogo101]

In response, some "pro-choicers" are proving that they are, in fact, pro-death. Feminist philosopher Christine Overall, in her book Human Reproduction: Principles, Practices, Policies, insists that abortion is all about the right not to procreate, not just the right not to be pregnant. She maintains that "fetal extinction" needs to be the goal.

It'd be funny if it weren't so serious. One may have SOME right "not to procreate," but whatever weight one reasonably may assign to that right PALES in comparison to the weight one reasonably must assign to a viable (at least, viable in ectogenic womb) fetus's right to LIVE.

[pogo101]

Babies know when they are loved even in the womb. Seriously. A sterile fake womb would be a disaster for the growing baby.

I understand, but if the "mother" is going to abort the pregnancy anyway, then "a sterile fake womb," loveless or not, is surely better for the infant than the alternative: the DumpSter.

[ellery]

My husband and I are considering adopting a child. If God entrusts us with the awesome responsibility of caring for one of his miracles, the route by which he sends the child to us seems like a distinction without a difference.