Artificial Wombs, Abortion, and Reproduction

How artificial wombs will change the future

Researchers have made unbelievable strides toward eliminating humans from human reproduction.

• In 2016, researchers at Cambridge grew human embryos in an artificial womb for 13 days.
• In 2017, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia developed what they called a Biobag and took a lamb fetus to full term in it.
• In 2022, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel created synthetic embryos from mice stem cells.
• Also in 2022, Cambridge researchers used stem cells to grow a synthetic embryo with a brain and a beating heart.

We seem to be well on our way to the ability to create synthetic embryos from stem cells, implant them in artificial wombs in a lab, and carry them to full term.

Which is to say, we are well on our way to profound social disruption driven by new reproductive technology.

How will people respond to artificial wombs?

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I believe most people will resist the idea of synthetic embryos and artificial wombs, gradually accept the technology, and eventually adopt it as simply another medical tool.

The idea resembles Frankenstein enough that most people will feel wierd about it. Religious people will view it as playing God, and they will be especially opposed to it. But then most people will accept the technology, much like we gradually warmed up to in vitro fertilization.

Many Christians denounced in vitro when it first became possible. As more infertile couples used it, the stories of changed lives spread throughout our culture. Now everyone endorses in vitro. I personally know Christians who espouse “trusting God” who do not trust God when it comes to their infertility; they seek medical help instead.

Some women will suffer complications during pregnancy that would have killed their babies prior to the miracle of artificial wombs. Their babies will survive, they’ll share their stories, and people will be awed and thrilled. The age of viability will be pushed back to a couple months, then weeks, and finally days.

Artificial wombs will prove themselves to be an obvious alternative to aborting unwanted pregnancies. Then Christians will be all in.

How will people respond to synthetic embryos?

Synthetic embryos will be a much harder sell. What is a synthetic embryo if not a manipulation of life’s essential material? What is synthesizing an embryo from stem cells if not playing God?

Then again, synthetic embryos will spawn “success stories” that will be hard to resist. No one, including religious fundamentalists, wants to spend months of pregnancy anticipating a baby with major birth defects. No one wants to worry whether the baby will die shortly after birth, die a few years later, or require life-long intensive care and never experience life to its fullest. Any medical tool that doctors say could avoid such a situation will likely be embraced, first by high-risk couples and later by most people.

And if synthethic embryos avoid birth defects, then they will eliminate the kinds of situations that may motivate some women to choose an abortion. Synthetic embryos might prove to be “pro-life” in the sense of promoting “pro-birth” ideology and policy. Then conservative Christians will be fine with manipulating the stuff of life.

Artificial wombs and abortion rights

Most abortion laws try to balance the rights of the fetus and the rights of women by allowing abortion up to the age of viability, when a fetus can survive outside a mother’s womb with the aid of medical devices.

Artificial wombs will zero out the age of viability. As soon as a woman discovers her pregnancy, she could have her embryo removed to an artificial womb. The fetus will survive without her carrying it to full term, dealing with the physical impacts of pregnancy, or navigating the social and economic challenges that many pregnant women experience.

In short, artificial wombs could allow women to reproduce just as easily as men. A woman could walk away from a pregnancy, leaving the fetus to develop in a lab and the resulting child to be adopted. It will be difficult to defend abortion rights under those circumstances.

As Rosalind Moran and Jolie Zhou explain:

Women would be able to end their pregnancy without resorting to traditional abortion. Given this option, if a woman chooses traditional abortion regardless, the abortion will appear more like an intentional killing.

Artificial wombs and bodily autonomy

Yet some women may not want to become biological mothers, Moran and Zhou argue. Outlawing abortion because artificial wombs offer an alternative would violate the bodily autonomy of women who don’t want to become mothers.

Women who might be coerced to transfer an unwanted pregnancy to an artificial womb could very likely experience a sense of obligation to their biological child. They may experience pyschological harm from their awareness of refusing the idealized role of mother, not to mention possible social stigma for their choice.

Many of the same Christians who celebrate artificial wombs for saving lives will condemn women who use artificial wombs to avoid being parents.

No matter how we look at artificial wombs, we can’t escape the fact that women would undergo some type of medical procedure to remove an embyro or a fetus to the artificial womb. If the law requires it, if social pressure coerces it, then women’s bodily autonomy will be violated.

The degree of violation depends on the nature of the procedure and the individual woman’s feelings about it, but there’s no escaping the reality that women will shoulder a reproductive responsibility that men escape. Medical technology won’t change that status quo.

By the way, who is going to raise the unwanted baby when it comes out of the artificial womb?

Regulation and personal choice

Artificial wombs and synthetic embryos will be regulated by the FDA. For a time, they will be used only to save the lives of otherwise nonviable fetuses.

Quickly, conservative politicians will require the use of non-human reproduction in an effort to eliminate abortion. Christians will exert moral and social pressure on the government, elected officials, and women.

It will be up to women’s rights advocates — which should be all of us — to ensure that bodily autonomy doesn’t get ignored completely. Society will need regulations that enable women and their partners to make informed choices for their own lives.

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