Artificial Wombs

[irnbruguzzler]

Would we want these?

What would become of women if we had them?

Oooh really that's interesting. Thinking about it that makes sense rather than the other way around. Does make me remember that "parasites" comment ages ago that caused such a kerfuffle!

So you need to persuade the placenta to attach to something external then? I should know this I've had two babies

So you could get it so attach to a man's circulatory system?

Et voila!

All getting a bit Borg here now...

Well, not really. Think about ectopic pregnancies -- very very very rarely a woman actually manages to carry an ectopic pregnancy to (something close to). 99.9999999% of the time she either has a termination or she dies. The uterus is a clever thing that stops you bleeding to death when a placenta attaches to it, and as a man lacks a uterus he'd be more likely to go down the bleeding-to-death-in-agony path. He'd also need to have been castrated first to suppress his own hormone levels and then have some kind of wacky HRT that they haven't invented yet.

Hmmmm

Shall I put the test tubes away and tell DH we're going to have to hold fire? Shame.

You may have been wacthing body matters, I have been watching the film Junior with Arnie which I feel is a reliable source of up-to-the-minute cutting edge science info on this topic

Tmesis
"Extrauterine pregnancy occurs in just nine in 100,000 births, when the baby develops outside the womb and embeds itself elsewhere in tissue.
In most ectopic pregnancies, the baby grows in fallopian tubes. But Molly was attached to the ligament tissue in the abdominal cavity."

Baby grew outside mothers womb

so it seems, while rare, it is possible

There are so many issues in this that I hadn't even thought of! I was just mulling over the idea of distopias/ feminist utopias generally and the concept of artificial wombs entered my head.

There is a huge social element to gestation isn't there? Babies aren't the blank slate Locke thought they were. If babies are born with a 'mother tongue' as I'm sure some research shows, what would happen if they were never exposed to language inutero? Would they play rosetta stone tapes next to these 'baby machines' or something? There's also the taste element. Would parents get to choose what the amniotic fluid would taste of, just as if the mum was eating chocolate or curry? It's all just to bizzarre to contemplate.

But medical science has pushed the boundaries so far so quickly, who knows what the future will hold. But if we're still living in a patriarcal world at the time, we can be sure that it will be controlled in a way to benefit men and not women or children. God, what if they try transfering aborted embryos into these?

I did once read an article about a woman who gestated a healthy child without a womb (it had attached itself to her intestines after a partial hysterectomy). They said it was a 1 in a billion case.

One future scenario I can see happening sooner is all women being sterilised at age 12 or something and having to apply for a licence or somesuch to have IVF later in life. Then they would probably reclassify rape as mere assault because it would no longer have a risk of pregnancy. Not that yuou would even have rape then anyway because why would a woman refuse sex ever if she couldnt get pregnant (that's sarcasm, btw, in case it doesnt 'translate' on screen). Hell, I'm in a cynical mood today!

Viz language, the baby comes out of the womb able to learn any language on earth. Within a few months, it has discarded the sounds unnecessary it its own language - so a French baby babbling, sounds different to an English one. But on day 1, they both have the same sounds from what I understand.

That's how I understood it, too, ER

ER - in the womb, a baby can hear rhythm but not pitch. So a baby hears the rhythm of his or her mother tongue. And I believe this can be tested in newborns, that they are already familiar with teh mother tongue.

But yes, for a long time babies can adapt and learn any language. In fact, people used to think it was about age 7 when children could no longer become effectively bilingual, and this is being revised upwards and upwards.

I still think though that there are serious issues with wombs not being inside women's bodies, and language would likely be one of them.

Yes, juuule, that's why I said "very very very rarely a woman actually manages to carry an ectopic pregnancy to (something close to)" although there was supposed to be a " term" after that final ")" so i can see why it was confusing.

The first transplant (in terms of the operation to place the new uterus) gas already taken place.

It took place in Turkey, using the uterus of a deceased donor transplanted into a woman who was born without one [http://rt.com/news/first-uterus-surgery-success-845/ link]]. It is not yet clear if a successful pregnancy can be sustained (the immune system issues are more complex than for other transplants).

But people here seem to be saying science should not be striving to assist women who need a new uterus because it's all a patriarchal conspiracy. I find that curious, and would take a completely opposite view that it would be an outrage if the possibilities of assisting women's reproductive health and functioning were not being researched, studied and advanced.

That's not an artificial womb though is it EW? It's a real one, transplanted into someone else.

I still think we need to define terms here...

People aren't saying scientists shouldn't be striving to help women. They're pointing out that as long as the world is controlled by men, technology is just as likely to be used to women's detriment than benefit.

It is an important step in the scientific route to an artificial uterus.

Nowadays, breakthroughs in transplant technology lead towards replacement organs, not the other way round. It will give important information about what is needed to sustain pregnancy in a uterus which is not the same tissue as the body to which it is attached.

So scientifically augmented uterus function is being studied and acted on in this way. Then you have to look at other steps towards other "repair" options (growing new tissue).

Obviously only then when you know how to make, site and support during pregnancy could you look at further options for novel siting.

If you think the actual work of scientists along this path is too dangerous (because of possible later misuse), then you are limiting research into women's reproductive health.

If you do not think these steps are necessary, grateful if you would post a more realistic scientific approach (that isn't sci fi, of course).

Well, my approach would be to overthrow patriarchy so that technology would only ever be used to enhance women's lives, not to blight them.