Harrop: Are we ready to confront ethics of artificial wombs?

‘Biobags’ are being developed to save premature infants, but their use won’t necessarily end there.

By Froma Harrop

A new medical device may change almost everything we think about making babies. It may also sweep away the current controversy over abortion while creating new ethical dilemmas. We speak of the artificial womb.

Also called a biobag, an artificial womb is a big plastic sack filled with synthetic amniotic fluid. A tube going into the bag supplies the fluid, and another tube drains it.

Artificial wombs have been used to bring lambs to full term outside the mama sheep’s belly. It’s just a matter of time before the artificial womb is ready to gestate a human fetus.

The biobag’s developers say their only goal is to help premature babies thrive. Instead of using mechanical ventilation and other equipment to salvage those born much too early, nurses in neonatal units could put the premature babies in bags mimicking the pre-birth environment. That would allow the baby to continue developing as peacefully as it would in its mother’s womb. Biobags could also save extremely premature babies from dying or suffering brain damage, lung disease and other serious conditions.

You see where this could go. It could go to ectogenesis. A fixture of science fiction, ectogenesis is the growing of an embryo or fetus outside the mother’s body. The 1999 movie “The Matrix” featured a network of biobags with fetuses growing inside.

Right now, scientists are able to nurture embryos conceived through in vitro fertilization for almost 14 days. Two weeks is the voluntary limit placed on human embryonic research because that is when the “primitive streak” — a forerunner of the nervous system — appears. There are new calls to extend the cutoff to 28 weeks.

It’s inevitable. Embryos grown in dishes will eventually be put into biobags. Baby made, uterus not required.

What does this mean for society? Where do we begin? Women would be spared the pain, physical risks and economic losses of child bearing. Gay men — or anyone, really — could have children without securing the services of a female’s womb.

The abortion debate would change radically. For example, a state could require that women having abortions transfer the fetus to an artificial womb. The woman could keep the resulting baby or let someone adopt it. Such a system, one imagines, would lead to a large supply of adoptable infants, perhaps more than there are parents for.

What are the possible objections to replacing the human womb with extrauterine devices? Many may find the idea distasteful and unnatural. They may argue that removing the physical tie between mother and baby could undermine their emotional bond. (Others would counter that fathers and adoptive parents connect just as closely with their children.) Some say a developing fetus needs to hear the heartbeat and voice of the mother, but those sounds could be reproduced and provided.

The subject of what happens to embryos often produces emotional responses. Consider the debate over using embryos for embryonic stem cell research. (Never mind that IVF clinics routinely discard thousands of unused embryos.)

Scientists can already manipulate genes to make “designer babies.” Soon they will be able to gestate them in biobags. Any number of startling scenarios arise.

Humans wanting large numbers of children via one partner are currently constrained by the fact that women usually bear only one child at a time. What would stop rich people from paying for a roomful of artificial wombs producing, say, 20 children at once? Laws would or could.

Before laws can be made, though, societies will have to decide what may be ethically done. And societies will disagree.

O, brave new world. Biotech is creating it faster than our imaginations can travel.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. Email her at fharrop@gmail.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

A Volunteers of America Western Washington crisis counselor talks with somebody on the phone Thursday, July 28, 2022, in at the VOA Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Dire results will follow end of LGBTQ+ crisis line

The Trump administration will end funding for a 988 line that serves youths in the LGBTQ+ community.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Tuesday, July 8

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Comment: Students can thrive if we lock up their phones

There’s plenty of research proving the value of phone bans. The biggest hurdle has been parents.

Dowd: A lesson from amicable Founding Foes Adams and Jefferson

A new exhibit on the two founders has advice as we near the nation’s 250th birthday in the age of Trump.

GOP priorities are not pro-life, or pro-Christian

The Republican Party has long branded itself as the pro-life, pro-Christian party.… Continue reading

Was Republicans’ BBB just socialism for the ultra-rich?

It seems to this reader that the recently passed spending and tax… Continue reading

Comment: $100 billion for ICE just asks for waste, fraud, abuse

It will expand its holding facilities, more than double its agents and ensnare immigrants and citizens alike.

toon
Editorial: Using discourse to get to common ground

A Building Bridges panel discussion heard from lawmakers and students on disagreeing agreeably.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, June 27, 2025. The sweeping measure Senate Republican leaders hope to push through has many unpopular elements that they despise. But they face a political reckoning on taxes and the scorn of the president if they fail to pass it. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times)
Editorial: GOP should heed all-caps message on tax policy bill

Trading cuts to Medicaid and more for tax cuts for the wealthy may have consequences for Republicans.

Alaina Livingston, a 4th grade teacher at Silver Furs Elementary, receives her Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic for Everett School District teachers and staff at Evergreen Middle School on Saturday, March 6, 2021 in Everett, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: RFK Jr., CDC panel pose threat to vaccine access

Pharmacies following newly changed CDC guidelines may restrict access to vaccines for some patients.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, July 7

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Comment: Supreme Court’s majority is picking its battles

If a constitutional crisis with Trump must happen, the chief justice wants it on his terms.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.