To think gestation outside the body is a fab idea

No. It’s an utterly dreadful idea. Attachment doesn’t just happen once a baby is born. There’s no ethical way to find out what damage gestation outside the body would cause to the developing brain.

Op sounds like some mad scientist. Sorry for you op but it doesn’t look like you’ll get to see it in your lifetime. The film “The Assessment” doesnt go into the science of a future like this but it does highlight how depressing it could be.

Oh op thinks a recording of a voice will suffice

Do you actually believe that respect for women would increase if they didn’t gestate? That seems incredibly naïve
Just look at how easy access to violent porn is affecting the treatment of young girls in secondary schools. Those boys will not respect the girls more if they don’t gestate.
Misogyny is too deeply entrenched in society to be erased by one technological “development”.

I wonder what implications there would be from the baby not hearing their mothers voice (or anyone’s!) for the months before birth? Would it affect bonding?

What point are you trying to make? This doesn't seem as relevant as you believe it is, this is an online thread on a discussion board, not going up to someone with a seeming intent to wound, as far as we know nobody has been fully gestated in vitro yet - a very premature baby is far closer to what's described here, some infants already are gestated 50% outside a human body. So it seems like an odd remark. However, it may be also that you want to highlight that IVF was the very start of these reproductive technologies that may be regarded as a very slippery slope.

I'm heartened to read the disgust on the first few pages of this thread. When this technology becomes available, there will be an enormous campaign to manufacture consent for this, "feminists" will be at the forefront, and it will be a hate crime against any individual gestated this way to criticise this rubicon in human development.

Would you say that to someone using IVF to get pregnant?

I think the whole process of growing a life inside of you is as close as you’ll get to a miracle in a pretty mundane world. As hard as I found pregnancy I wouldn’t give away the privilege that comes with my own own body growing and carrying my babies and the comfort they get from being the only person they truly know from their first day of life.

knowing what we do about infant attachment I think it would be hugely unethical to pursue in the respect of saving people the job of being pregnant but the technology, if/when it exists, could have practical applications to improve prospects for preemies.

No, definitely not.
There is nothing natural about it and I'd imagine that it would have a big impact on the babies development and later stages.

This will definitely happen for good or for bad.
Rich women are less and less inclined to have pregnancies. Rich countries are the countries with declining populations. Ie the ones who could afford to invest in this and who want the best and most successful women to have children. The super rich already use surrogates. In 100 years it will only be the very poor who physically carry and birth their own children. Just as wet nurses were routinely used until last century by the wealthy, until the advent of bottle feeding.

I find your thought process extremely disturbing.

Who is this suppose to benefit because it's certainly not women or children?

Brave New World.

appalling idea

can they honestly not put the money from this research into something else?

Is this so men can claim they have given birth or carried a baby?

In a sci-fi world where the artificial womb did as good a job as my own and didn’t cost a fortune, I would have jumped at the chance. I hated being pregnant.

I wonder what we might lose as parents, though. With natural gestation there’s 9 months to come to terms with the idea of a new life coming. The physical impact of pregnancy means most mothers have to assess their lives and learn to accommodate. It’s hard to avoid the idea that something momentous is happening. The excitement of feeling the first movements and the natural growth of the bump all leading to the big day. It’s very physical and, I would say, quite primal. Men, to a much lesser extent, can also connect to the growth of their child, but it’s not as forced on them and they sometimes opt out.

I think the way women tend to adapt to motherhood faster and better than men tend to adapt to fatherhood is, in part, down to our having lived with pregnancy. Losing that could have unintended consequences. Possibly replaceable by rituals that bring us closer to our growing baby, but then would the advantages of an external womb be all but lost anyway?

I had four babies, I didn't like the early part where I felt sick but I did love the later part where they were moving and kicking and I could feel a connection with them. I even quite liked giving birth. It made me appreciate my body in a way I hadn't before and haven't since. It showed me how powerful it could be on a primeval level. I had four easy home births so my view on giving birth is a positive one. Yes, it does hurt but it is more than just pain. I feel sad for those who didn't get a positive experience and obviously safe delivery is priority but I think artificial birthing pods could take something away from the female experience and therefore the human experience.

Your previous post outlining the benefits clearly wasn’t purely relating to very premature babies. Babies need their mothers pre-birth, not just as a vessel to carry the child but for the million ways in which the mother and babies bodies interact during pregnancy.

I’m a mum through adoption, I love my kids more than life itself. I also recognise they are impacted by losing that bond with their birth mum formed I the womb pre-birth.

Sounds like Brave New World. No thanks. Babies need to grow in the way God intended!

You seem desperate to push this ghastly idea @Allotmentblackfly Why?

It would save a fortune on maternity clothes!

https://www.timesnownews.com/health/worlds-first-artificial-womb-facility-to-grow-30000-babies-a-year-in-birth-pods-parents-can-design-child-article-96231371. Not sure if this link will work.. Read this yesterday. Let's hope the ethical ban on using embryos continues.