To think gestation outside the body is a fab idea

[Allotmentblackfly]

Recent research makes the possibility of gestating a baby outside a woman’s body possible. Do we think this is a good idea or not?

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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”.

Oh op thinks a recording of a voice will suffice

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.

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.

‘Parents can look at their foetus in real time’: are artificial wombs the future? | Pregnancy | The Guardian

That article doesn't say what you put in the OP. It is talking about use from ~20 weeks, which is not even remotely close to full gestation. It's also a journalistic article, not a peer-reviewed publication, so not exactly reliable.

Basically, the guardian wrote an article as click-bait, and it worked.

[edit for typo]

yes, it talks about later gestation, but if you read on, it also talks about extragenesis the entirety of the pregnancy as a future possibility. Interestingly, the doctor interviewed in the article refers to childbirth as barbaric. I'm afraid my experiences as a student made me feel the same. Hence my long lasting interest in the subject. Its not the article I began the thread with. I just came across it today. I'm surprised by the hostility my post has brought up. But hey ho. There it is.

Anything is a future possibilty. Does not mean anything will come if it. I would file this firmly in the "not in my lifetime" category

Lol. You are probably right.

Have you read Sex Robots and Vegan Meat by Jenny Kleeman? It has a chapter on this.

If we take away the dystopian aspect aside, I can see how some might view this as a win for women's autonomy (no need to go through the risks of pregnancy and labour) but the cynic in me is just imagining social services forcibly removing women's fetuses, or abortion being banned entirely since 'women don't even need to get pregnant anymore, she knew the risks!'

I'll put my tinfoil hat away now..

Nailed it

No. I’ll search it out. Thanks

I would 100% have taken this option if it had been available for my pregnancies, which I hated. I fondly imagine the foetus growing in a sac in the airing cupboard.

genuinely it would be a game changer for equality if this were possible

Hm I see people are saying this is a “mad scientist” idea. Makes sense as I am a scientist and quite possibly mad.

airing cupboard??
id have it in the living room
but i agree it would be great😊

Lots of new ideas are not welcomed initially
i think I remember reading that there used to be anxiety about women travelling by train

lol. Me too😊😊😊

If it ever were possible to choose to have a baby like this, it would obviously cost a small fortune and therefore only be available to very wealthy people.
Even for say a couple of dozen babies, imagine the facilities and highly trained medical staff that would be required to constantly monitor these babies. If they needed medical intervention, that would require a whole new branch of medical care.
These would be human lives (not to get all DrMyCoy from Star Trek about it) - the stakes would be massively high and so would clinical standards have to be.
Apart from the ethical issues, the legal side of things would be an absolute nightmare - way more so than surrogacy even.
There may still be huge medical breakthroughs in preventing/ treating some of the results of childbearing you have mentioned so this might not be as much of a consideration in the future anyway.

That's impossible and will never happen.
You really need to step away from the sci fi asap