Artificial wombs are getting more and more attention over the years. People want to know if it’s even possible to use an artificial womb and if yes then should you use it or not? Is it safe and also is it alright to use one? So, to understand and answer all these questions we first need to know what an artificial womb is and how it actually works.
What is an artificial womb?
Even if an artificial womp sounds so new the technology behind it has been there for a long time.
We have been able to grow human embryos (the early developmental stage of an animal) since the 1970s. We were able to grow them to the Blastocyst stage.
This is the basis of IVF(In vitro fertilization), where doctors remove eggs from a person’s ovary, fertilize them with sperm in a lab, and then place the embryo back into the uterus. But the artificial womb is not the same thing. It is something that goes even further.
The scientists who are working on this technology are trying to go to the next step of giving birth to a human outside the uterus. This is the part where all the human organs are formed. So the end goal of an artificial womb is to make pregnancy easy and make babies in an artificial environment.
How Close Are We to An Artificial Womb
Not very long ago, scientists used to believe that the uterus was absolutely essential to induce the shape and the correct formation of these organs. But recently in 2021 Scientist Dr. Hanna and his team have proved for the first time that. YES. We can do this critical part of mammal development in an artificial environment by growing a mouse embryo outside the uterus for as long as 11 or 12 days, about half the animal’s natural gestation period… This is a major leap in the future of artificial womb.
But this does not mean that we are ready to grow a human being in an artificial womb. That is because we are not there yet. We still can’t keep a human embryo alive outside a uterus.
There have been some studies about the next part of the process but none of them had so much success to show for it.
But you might have seen a Premature lamb kept alive in a ‘plastic bag’ womb which may seem terrifying to look at but actually is a very big step for the artificial womb. In this study, they took the embryo about two-thirds of the pregnancy and grew it outside for a month.
So if we just think about it then it’s clear that we are not even close to having a fully working artificial working womb in our lifetime. It will take years to fill in all the blanks and create new technologies that aren’t here yet and have to look for ways to put them together. And a lot of people are just fine with this as many of us are still not ready to have an artificially working womb. There are a lot of people concerned about the idea of technology involved in reproduction.
Is it Good or Bad?
Bad Side
On the bad side of this, the first thing we start to see is that ‘there are more important things’
there are many things that are far more important than an artificial womb for parents.
Things like: paid parental leave, affordable childcare, and making housing more affordable.
Or you might be thinking this could be used for terrible things. Like making babies in a factory. Or to control how people, have babies. Or maybe even to breed babies.
Or you might think pregnancy is important and special. We could never replicate that connection with technology, and we shouldn’t try.
Good Side
But there are some good things about an artificial womb as well.
The first thing about it is that pregnancy is a risk. Childbirth kills 800+ women around the world EVERY DAY.
Then there is the argument that ‘pregnancy holds women back’
There’s evidence to suggest the wage gap is mostly a motherhood penalty, and though there are policy changes that could help change that, technology could help too.
Then there is a reason of ‘Bearing children can be painful’
In surveys, roughly 30% – 45% of women say giving birth was traumatic. For some people, an artificial womb is like a dream come true. This can change lives for many people.
This is a conflicting thing and doesn’t have a straight answer,
A lot of people want to have children, but they can’t. For them, this can be something like magic. Some people want to have that special connection with their children before they are born. They want to feel that amazing thing of being pregnant. Then there are a lot of people who want to have biological children but are not sure if they want to get pregnant or not.
But everything aside this whole debate is framed as
“Artificial wombs versus Pregnancy”
But that doesn’t have to be true and might not be true at all because
- Even all the extreme versions of this are all just an option.
- Artificial womb research is crucial in the near term to SUPPORT pregnancy.
There are a lot of reasons why an Artificial Womb research can help in pregnancy.
You can read more about them by clicking here
