The End of Pregnancy

[Guest albert26]

The End of Pregnancy

by Jeremy Rifkin

 

Within a generation there will probably be mass use of artificial wombs to grow babies.

 

"The womb is a dark and dangerous place,a hazardous environment," wrote the late Joseph Fletcher, professor of medical ethics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

 

These words have haunted me over the years and have come back to me again in recent weeks, with talk of the imminent prospect of cloning a human being and using embryonic stem cells to create specific body parts to cure diseases.

 

As shocking as these developments have been, there is still another biological bombshell waiting in the wings - and this one provides the context for all the others and changes forever our concept of human life.

 

Researchers are working to create a totally artificial womb. Several weeks ago,a team of scientists from Cornell University`s Weill Medical College announced that they had succeeded, for the first time, in creating an artificial womb lining. The scientific team,led by Dr Hung Chiung Liu of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, stimulated cells to grow into uterine lining, using a cocktail of drugs and hormones. The goal of the research is to help infertile couples by creating an entire womb which could be transplanted into a woman.

 

Yosinori Kuwabara and his colleagues, working in a small research laboratory at Juntendou University in Tokyo,are developing the first operational artificial womb - a clear plastic tank the size of a bread basket, filled with amniotic fluid stabilised at body temperature.For the past several years, Kuwabara and his team have kept goat foetuses alive and growing for up to 10 days by connecting their umbilical cords to two machines that serve as a placenta, pumping in blood, oxygen and nutrients and disposing of waste products. While the plastic womb is still only a prototype, Kuwabara predicts that a fully functioning artificial womb capable of gestating a human foetus may be a reality in less than six years.Others are more sceptical, but say we will probably see the mass use of artificial wombs by the time today`s babies become parents.

 

Artificial wombs will most likely first be used as intensive care units for foe- tuses in cases where either the mother is ill and can no longer carry the child or where the foetus is ill and needs to be removed from the mother`s womb and cared for where it can be easily monitored. We can already keep foetuses alive in incubators during the last three months of gestation. And researchers routinely fertilise eggs and keep embryos alive in vitro for the first three to four days of their existence before implanting them in a womb. Scientists like Kuwabara are attempting to fill in the time between the beginning and end of the gestation process - the critical period where the foetus develops most of its organs.

 

Eventually, say many scientists working in the new field of foetal molecular biology, being able to grow a foetus in a totally artificial womb would make it easier to make genetic corrections and modifications - creating designer babies. The artificial womb may even become the preferred means of producing a child. Women could have their eggs removed and men their sperm taken in their teen years when they are most viable and kept frozen until they are ready to have a child. Mothers could spare themselves the rigours and inconveniences of pregnancy, retain their youthful figures and bring the baby home when "done".

 

Far fetched? Thousands of surrogate mothers` wombs have already been used to gestate someone else `s fertilised embryos. The artificial womb seems the next logical step in a process that has increasingly removed reproduction from traditional maternity and made of it a laboratory process.

 

Of course, many women, when asked, say they would prefer to have the experience of being pregnant and having the baby in their own womb. But their expectations might represent the dying sensibilities of the old order. In Aldous Huxley`s Brave New World, the "normal" people were genetically designed, cloned and gestated in artificial wombs - a biological assembly line process churning out ideal genotypes. Only the savages living in the remote reservations still carried their own babies in their bodies and breastfed them after birth. The practice was considered disgusting and something only animals did.

 

In the Brave New World, erotic sexual activity is encouraged and freely practised but completely divorced from the process of reproduction. Huxley wrote his novel in 1932, before the contraceptive pill had arrived. By the 1970s, however, sex and reproduction had branched into two separate realms, thanks, in large part, to the pill. It is also interesting to note that the pill made its debut at about the same time that researchers first began to use artificial insemination on a wide scale. While the pill revolutionised sex, removing it from the process of reproduction, artificial insemination, then later in vitro fertilisation, egg donation, surrogacy and, soon, cloning further separate the components of reproduction from the biological act of mating. The artificial womb completes the process.

 

Yet it raises troubling questions. We know that a foetus responds to the mother`s heartbeat, as well as her emotions, moods and movements. A subtle and sophisticated choreographic bond exists between the two and plays a critical role in the development of the foetus. What kind of child will we produce from a liquid medium inside a plastic box? How will gestation in a chamber affect the child `s motor functions and emotional and cognitive development? We know that young infants deprived of human touch and bodily contact often are unable to develop the full range of human emotions and sometimes die soon after birth or become violent, sociopathic or withdrawn later in life.

 

How will the elimination of pregnancy affect the concept of parental responsibility? Will parents feel less attached to their offspring? Will it undermine the sense of generational continuity that is so essential for reproducing and maintaining historical continuity and civilised life?

 

How will the end of pregnancy affect the way we think about gender and the role of women? Some feminists argue that it will finally mean liberation. Years ago the feminist writer Shulamith Firestone wrote enthusiastically about the prospect of an artificial womb: "Pregnancy is the temporary deformation of the body of the individual for the sake of the species.Moreover,childbirth hurts and isn`t good for you. At the very least, development of an option should make possible an honest examination of the ancient value of motherhood."

 

Other feminists view the artificial womb as the final marginalisation of women, robbing them of their primary role as progenitor of the species. The artificial womb, they argue, becomes the quintessential expression of male dominance, a way to create a mechanical substitute of the female womb. Armed with the artificial womb, asexual cloning technology and stem cells to produce all the extra body parts they need, men could free themselves, once and for all, from their dependency on women.

 

The artificial womb represents the completion of an even longer historic process that began nearly 400 years ago at the dawn of the scientific age. It was Francis Bacon, the father of modern science, who referred to nature as "a common harlot". He urged future generations to "tame, squeeze, mould" and "shape" her so that "man could become her master and the undisputed sovereign of the physical world". No doubt some will see the artificial womb as the final triumph of modern science. Others, the ultimate human folly.

 

Many people will likely say, why worry? Surely the artificial womb is far off on the horizon. Five years ago,we thought the same thing about human cloning and using stem cells to produce body parts.

 

http://www.speaking.com/articles_html/JeremyRifkin_1111.html

 

 

I think this is really interesting.

[Coral Rhedd]

Absolutely fascinating. I know young women who would welcome an artificial womb to avoid stretch marks and the hormonal and metabolic changes that cause post pregnancy weight to linger. And of course pregnancy can have more serious health consequences for women.

 

About the heartbeat? Couldn't it just be simulated as well?

 

On the other hand, there is some evidence that pregnancy before age 30 actually provides women with some protection against breast cancer. Also there in an influx of oxytocin (sp.) around birth that is a bonding hormone in women. I wonder if it also affects the baby?

[atinymonkey]

I found myself more interested in Jeremy Rifkin's view of Europe, as he's a economist.

[Guest albert26]

About the heartbeat? Couldn't it just be simulated as well?

 

The beating of the heart can probably be imitated with a device which would mimic that pumping system. Like a artificial heart.

 

On the other hand' date=' there is some evidence that pregnancy before age 30 actually provides women with some protection against breast cancer. Also there in an influx of oxytocin (sp.)[/quote']

 

That's right, however in developed nations many women have quite few children and postpone pregnancy for a long time, until 30 or even 40 years of age.

 

Also there in an influx of oxytocin (sp.) around birth that is a bonding hormone in women. I wonder if it also affects the baby?

 

I don't think that has allot of influence on babies. Because babies that are adopted after birth will usually form a bond with their adoptive parents instead of their biological parents.

[jdurg]

Hmm. That could lead to some strange pick-up lines. "Hey baby, want to see my cure for Breast Cancer?"

[Kleptin]

I just finished "brave New world"...

[Kylonicus]

Finally, men will be liberated from women!

 

Combined with erotic sex bots, with the full capacity for love and emotions, men will NEVER EVER need women again!

 

Feminist may hate it, but I would love it.

 

Men that women thought "were pigs", but who were exceptionally intelligent, capable and what not, would be able to reproduce. Men who had the emotional IQ of a chipmunk, but an IQ of 183, could finally reproduce.

 

This would also free me from having to debate with a potential partner about all the prenatal manipulation I want to do to my child!

 

I was just thinking about working on something like this!

 

Hurray, HOORAH!

 

 

One small step for humans, one giant step for humankind.

[Skye]

Noooo, this is a bad idea. Very bad. So filled with badliness. Women love children more than anything. Currently they are limited to about one a year, and it's huge hassle. But this system would mean that it would only be limited by how much they could charge, and that's a ridiculous amount. You couldn't walk through the house for all the Gest-a-matics, thumping away with their artificial hearts. I'm pretty sure it would lead to the end of civilisation within 9 months or so.

[Kylonicus]

NOOOO, it will be good.

 

 

Think, who are the people who tend to procreate the most right now?

 

It tends to be the least educated, the least intelligent, and least economically viable(Keyword is tends).

 

But with this technology, people with characteristics that make them successful, will be able to have as many kids as they want, without the burden, so they won't have to disrupt their busy lives, meanwhile the child can be put in daycare, so all those really smart career women and their genes won't die out of the gene pool.

 

As it is, it's either your career, or have very, very, few kids, if any.

 

 

Plus for nerds like me, who might not get a chance to procreate(or if we do, it would have to be with some hag), we can have children(I REALLY, REALLY wanna have kids, and a large family) without having women! In reality, the people who are getting screwed here aren't men or women, it's the poor, the technologically badward, and the luddites.

[Phi for All]

Plus for nerds like me, who might not get a chance to procreate(or if we do, it would have to be with some hag), we can have children(I REALLY, REALLY wanna have kids, and a large family) without having women!

Oh, goody! A sudden sharp rise in the gene pool of men who can't relate to women, who fear to discuss prenatal manipulation with them, and consider them hags if they don't just fall head over heels in love with a single look.

 

I think this is a bad idea. Have you ever considered that things which are difficult (pregnancy, relationships, etc) provide the most satisfaction when they're experienced fully and successfully? Take away the obstacles and the lack of challenges will make us weak.

[Kylonicus]

Certain obstacles will make us weak if we don't overcome them. However, presupposing that you don't NEED to overcome certain obstacles, and the things developed in overcoming those obstacles isn't necessary, then there is little loss. Plus for those who can't overcome such obstacles, it gives fair advantages.

[Skye]

In reality, the people who are getting screwed here aren't men or women, it's the poor, the technologically badward, and the luddites.

Call me a luddite, but I think I'll take the getting screwed thanks.

[Phi for All]

Certain obstacles will make us weak if we don't overcome them.

Giving up on finding ways to overcome obstacles most humans have been struggling successfully against for thousands of years will make you weak, and that much more likely to justify technology that doesn't allow you to grow as a person.

Plus for those who can't overcome such obstacles, it gives fair advantages.

For women who couldn't give birth without an artificial womb, I might relent in my opinion on a case by case basis. For men who don't want to face the challenges and pressures of dealing with relationships and think that raising children will be easier, I say definitely NOT.

[Nicholas]

Kylonicus, you know of the ancient emnity?

The war of the sexes?

 

The undeclared war that most men wake up to

only after they have lost?

 

The solution to bad mariage isn't divorce. It's a good mariage!

But that takes real men.