Here's an interesting read:
Artificial wombs: The coming era of motherless births? | Genetic Literacy Project
Artificial wombs will be a reality some time this century, and this carries a lot of implications.
So, would you support the development of artificial wombs? Would you place limits on their use? And, the reason for posting it in this forum,
would you like to see abortion replaced with the implantation of the foetus into an artificial womb, so it can be grown and adopted out, or put in an orphanage?
We discussed this awhile ago with a poster named RiverDad, havent seen him lately. He also proposed this as a solution to abortion.
I think that many people that would like a child and the woman cannot carry it to term, would benefit from this. It could offer hope to many.
And yes, reducing abortion is everyone's goal (as far as I know.) But I dont see how this solves many of the issues surrounding abortion.
The woman must be willing to undergo the transfer process, which would also have some health risk, even if minor. It would violate her rights to force her to undergo it and the govt wouldnt even know about the pregnancy unless a woman revealed it. Otherwise it would require violating her right to privacy.
Even so, I bet many would agree to it....if they were assured that they had no responsibilities towards the embryo after the transfer.
That brings us to who is responsible for the unborn in the artificial wombs:
--who's paying for the transfer procedure?
--who's paying for the maintenance and care of the unborn?
--who is paying for them after they are born? Foster care costs taxpayer $.
I think alot would be adopted but even today, unless parents are assured a baby is 'perfect' they usually dont want it (there are many exceptions, some people do take special needs children/babies). But probably not all would be adopted, since we cant even get all 100,0000+ available in the US today adopted.
RiverDad said that he felt the mother should pay for the upkeep of the unborn while developing in the artificial womb which to me, means there would be no point in women choosing that option.
So what is the practical side to this idea and exactly what issues are we solving? To me it seems like we'd just be producing more unwanted and unaffordable kids. (And again, we have over 100,000 awaiting adoption now).