Lab Develops Artificial Womb

Meowharishi writes: "According to this article at the Observer, scientists from Cornell University have successfully developed the first artificial womb. Embroys successfully attached themselves to the walls of these wombs and began to grow but were terminated to comply with regulations. Developments like this really offer tremendous opportunities for creating a family for those who cannot have children the old fashioned way."

Roman Catholic Church

[ism]

I am not a theologian and I am an ex-Catholic, now an agnostic. With that out of the way, my opinion is based on my understanding of the Catechism. It seems under certain conditions, this may be acceptable. The relevant portions I am looking at is in Article 6 III, particularly 2376 and 2377.

2376 makes it clear that artificial insemination is morally wrong. It is based on the immorality of the intrusion of another person on a sacred bond that should be shared only between a married couple. So according to this, surrogate mothers are not acceptable.

However, suppose a married couple creates an embryo the old-fashioned, Church-sanctioned way. The embryo is then taken from the mother and placed into the artificial womb. This womb is not a person or even an entity, so there is no intrusion cited by 2376, unless it considers the harvesting of the embryo from the mother as that type of intrusion (but what if the father did the harvesting...?).

2377 makes it a little trickier. It specifically cites the "domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person," and is concerned with "diassociating the sexual act from the procreative act." From my understanding, the second a sperm and egg join, the Church believes that is a person, which I presume is imbued with a soul. From this point onwards, I believe the "origin and destiny" in that sense has been determined.

One question remains, and that is if not carrying a baby to full term (but not killing it) is in violation of separating the sexual from the procreative. Maybe someone with a deeper understanding of this can weigh in?

Azi

[silentbozo]

Actually, the artifical womb story reminded me of the Azi in CJ Cherry's [cherryh.com] books, like Cyteen and 40,000 in Ghenna.

Scary shit if you really stop to think about it. You could give birth entire species once you develop the technology far enough. Instead of having colony ships filled with people, animals, etc., you could have one filled with frozen genetic material (sperm and ova), ready to be thawed out and grown at the other end...

Or you could make a few hundred clones of Hitler in some underground lab in South America...

Why nobody talks about adoption

[edremy]

What's up over there in the States? Is it rendered illegal to adopt a poor child from your local community or even a poor foreign country? Or is it unpopular now, because that cute little kiddie might have terrorist genes because it came from Somalia?

Speaking as an (adoptive) parent, there are a bunch of reasons.

1. A pervasive opinion that adoption is a lesser option: people often ask about the "real" parents. (Hey moron, we change the diapers, we feed him at 2:00AM, he calls us mama and dada. We are the real parents.)
2. 10k TV movies and breathless tabloid stories about adoptions gone bad.
3. Increasing health care coverage for infertility treatments coupled with agressive advertising by for-profit infertility clinics.
4. A culture where biological mothers can either abort or keep the kids with the help of welfare and be accepted, but placing a baby for adoption is regarded as despicable.
5. Some amount of racism. Lots and lots of people want perfect white infants: a lot fewer are willing to take darker kids. Fine by me: we got Adam since some other adoptive family couldn't handle the fact he was 1/2 black.

Adoption works. It's truly sad that so few people understand that.

Re:could this lead

[bourne]

To rich women not having to carry their children the old fashion way?

There is no need to worry - men aren't affected, so this development will languish opposed and unused.

Consider that Viagra is covered (and was included in record time) under many health plans, while the majority of women using oral contraceptives still have to pay for them themselves. (Viagra: A Tale of Two Pills [fwhc.org])

Also consider the fact that while 1 in 6 American couples have trouble conceiving [umkc.edu] , only 12 states [asrm.org] have any requirement that insurance companies cover "some form" of infertility treatment. In fact, only 3 of those states require insurance plans to cover it as part of regular coverage.

As fertility rates continue to drop in the industrialized countries, this will become more and more of a problem. 20-odd years ago, the first successful IVF was discarded because the researcher's superior considered it immoral. 20 years from now, we may view an artificial womb as we do IVF today - not needed by most, unavailable to many who need it, but a godsend to those who need it and can get it. Speaking as the father of an IVF baby, I know how much that can mean to someone.