posted
Let's immediately begin funding research into an artificial womb. Once an AW can be developed, abortions can be replaced with fetal transplants into AWs, effectively ending the major points of contention between the so-called "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice" camps. With an artificial womb, no fetuses would need to be killed, and no unwilling mothers would need to carry said fetuses to term. Ideally, the technology could be developed to make the transplant at least as safe and quick for the mother as an abortion and could even eliminate the "safety of the mother" and "rape/incest" clauses espoused even by most "pro-life" advocates. Unwanted babies born of artificial wombs could be given up for adoption. The costs of the procedure could be paid for by the same resources that currently fund the enormous efforts of the two opposing camps today.
posted
It will never happend, for a number of reasons.
First, the very act of getting pregnant can be fatal...not the fun part before, but actually getting pregnant. An artificial womb probably will require some sort of formal gestation period before the fetus will be able to removed from the mother. Some women will not be able to carry the fetus to term even that long, it would be either too painful or risky.
Second, this will be a surgical procedure, and you can't force anyone to undergo a surgical procedure against their wil...and some women won't want to do this, for whatever reason.
Also it opens up all sorts of problems...who will pay for it, who will pay to raise the child, what types of rights does the mother have after birth, can the cild trace his/her parents....
Not that I think an AW is a bad thig...just the opposite, I think it is a great start.
quote: Second, this will be a surgical procedure, and you can't force anyone to undergo a surgical procedure against their wil...and some women won't want to do this, for whatever reason.
Abortion is an elective surgical procedure also. No one (to my knowledge) is forced to undergo an abortion. This procedure would replace the abortion procedure.
quote: First, the very act of getting pregnant can be fatal...not the fun part before, but actually getting pregnant. An artificial womb probably will require some sort of formal gestation period before the fetus will be able to removed from the mother. Some women will not be able to carry the fetus to term even that long, it would be either too painful or risky.
The (theoretical) AW would be perfected to sustain an embryo from the moment of conception. Ideally couples who so desired would be able to conceive in-vitro and have the embryo directly implanted into the AW.
The (theoretical) transplant procedure would be perfected to be even safer than the abortion procedure today. There may be mishaps where (due to urgency, frailty of the mother, or special complications) the embryo or fetus does not survive, but there is some risk in all medical procedures.
quote: Also it opens up all sorts of problems...who will pay for it, who will pay to raise the child, what types of rights does the mother have after birth, can the cild trace his/her parents....
Actually, I don't think it "opens up" any of these problems. Who pays for abortions? Who pays to raise all the unsupported children today? What rights does a woman have who puts a child up for adoption today? Can adoptive children trace their parent today? None of these are new issues. There may be some new facets to these issues and I'd be happy to debate specifics.
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posted
Barring any improvement in the ability to reduce conceptions, I approve of your idea, and I approve of the tax increases necessary to give it government support.
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quote: This procedure would replace the abortion procedure.
To clarify, this procedure would make abortion unnecessary. The only reason to choose abortion over this option would be specifically to kill the embryo or fetus. (By all accounts, no one gets an abortion simply because they want to see something die.) Therefore, abortion could be eliminated as a legal surgical procedure altogether.
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posted
First of all, it won't replace abortion...that is what I am saying. Some women won't allow this, for whatever reasons, and we can't force them to....nor should we want to.
Second, it DOES open up all sorts of issues. Right now an abortion is sometimes paid for by the parent, but is also covered my insurance.
The kids college costs, the cost of feeding ang raising them, all that would need to be covered, Not all the kids would be adopted, so who pays? The "parent"?
None of this would address the actual question..when does human life begin.
I think it would be a step in the right direction, to be sure, but we are a long way from any of this technology being ready, even in a beginnig stage.
It is easy to say in this thread "no risk involved" or " can sustain life from conception", but the reality is that is isn't going to happen within our lifetimes. There are too many complications, and too many liability isses, for this to happen any time soon. The people who claim otherwise are probably trying to seel something.
posted
Karl-- I think we need to find a more effective way of teaching children about the effects of sex.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote: First of all, it won't replace abortion...that is what I am saying. Some women won't allow this, for whatever reasons, and we can't force them to....nor should we want to.
Why won't it replace abortion? What is the position of the (theoretical) woman who would rather have an abortion than the transplant. I won't say at this point that women should or shouldn't be forced to accept this as an alternative to abortion. You'll have to provide a more compelling reason than "for whatever reason".
As for who would pay, well, I think the procedure itself would have the same claim to coverage (i.e. insurance) as an abortion does today. "Pro-life" groups would also have the opportunity to "put their money where their mouth is" so to speak and put their vast energies into fund raising to pay for situations where the procedure is un-funded. Or alternatively, the government could raise taxes to pay for it. I'd vote for that.
Who pays for the kid? Well any un-wanted children would be orphans. Who takes care of them now?
None of this is meant to address the "when does life begin" question. It's meant to make the question irrelevant.
I've said from the beginning this is theoretical. I know it won't happen tomorrow, though I'm not 100% sure it couldn't happen in my lifetime (from a technological standpoint - politics is a different matter entirely). But none of this is a reason we shouldn't pursue this technology. AIDS may not be cured in my lifetime. Does this invalidate the need for or usefulness of that research?
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posted
That would be a pretty good alternative. I would wonder, though, whether it would actually be available to every woman who wanted to be rid of the pregnancy.
And if the woman gave up the fetus to be developed in an artificial womb, would she have any rights to the child when it was "born"? I could see a lot of second thoughts at that point.
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posted
Here's a better solution (I mentioned it on the other thread, but no one commented). Parents should put their children on birth control when they hit puberty, and no one should go off birth control until he/she wants to have a child.
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posted
One big problem with this idea is that it seems to me that one problem some women have with giving up children for adoption is that they don't like the idea of their offspring running around in somebody else's care. It seems that some people feel that if their child ends up being born and becomes an actual human, then it is their responsibility to care for it. That is what makes abortion so handy -- it removes that responsibility from the world.
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posted
The development of this womb would inevitably lead to the destruction of unborn children along the way, so I don't find developing one to be an acceptable alternative.
Were it to magically come into existence, I don't think I'd have a problem with it. Assuming the operation to remove the embryo were as safe or safer than any form of abortion, even current constitutional jurisprudence on abortion would probably allow such a device's mandated use.
quote: The development of this womb would inevitably lead to the destruction of unborn children along the way, so I don't find developing one to be an acceptable alternative.
If the volunteers were those who would have an abortion anyways, I would definitely prefer the costs of development to the cost of not having it down the road.
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quote:Parents should put their children on birth control when they hit puberty, and no one should go off birth control until he/she wants to have a child.
I agree with this, but keep in mind that there are not, as far as I know, any 100% effective birth control methods.
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quote:Parents should put their children on birth control when they hit puberty, and no one should go off birth control until he/she wants to have a child.
You cannot force this to happen without denying a lot of people the freedom to practice their religion.
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posted
What’s wrong with personal responsibility? Like you choose to have sex, then you have responsibility for the baby.
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posted
I think the transplant procedure would be far more safe and easier on the mother than an actual abortion. The reason? Rather than scraping out the whole uterus and risking such problems as accidental perforation, the transplant would have to proceed carefully with a scope and very small instruments to harvest the embryo successfully. After that, the woman would have a normal, if heavy, period. It probably would be more successful before the development of the placenta begins. So, you see, I think it would need to occur earlier rather than later.
What cases of pregnancy are so dangerous from early on that they couldn't benefit from this? This technology would be miraculous to the only situation I can know of that is so severe as to threaten death. Ectopic pregnancies could actually be saved. Indeed, such technology would require the ability to successfully transfer an embryo and could be applicable not only from the fallopian tube to an artificial womb, but possibly even to the woman's womb.
But ectopic pregnancies are extremely rare. No one really considers them an abortion when the pregnancy is terminated because the pregnancy was not viable to begin with. What other dangerous situations would indicate an abortion over an embryo transfer?
Dagonee,
Do you think that offering the procedure to a woman who would have an abortion no matter what could be considered the lesser of two evils? Instead of automatically causing death, at least there is some effort to save the child. The woman asking for an abortion would also sign away all parental rights.
There are many, many adoptive parents out there looking only for babies. They wait for years on lists. I don't think finding parents for the children would be a problem.
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posted
Jay, some people have more willpower than others. Personal responsibility has a poor track record as a contraceptive. It works 100% until self-control breaks down (which is quickly and often, for many people).
The issue I have with an artificial womb is that it will surely be expensive. No insurance company is going to want to foot a huge bill for an unwanted child, nor anyone else. It sound awful, but I think it's true.
I think we should attempt to engineer ourselves to reproduce by subdivision. Like certain critters that grow an extra arm, the arm falls off, and turns into another critter. Now that would be cool!
quote:What’s wrong with personal responsibility? Like you choose to have sex, then you have responsibility for the baby.
Because the supreme court has ruled that we cannot force that responsibility on others. Whether they are right or wrong, that's the law of the land, and we have to deal with it.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
For some other perspectives, check out this thread from a few months ago.
I had a long argument with someone before that thread, and basically it came down to that she would never support making abortion illegal, even should this sort of alternative be available. In her opinion, a new alternative should just be one of many choices.
It wasn't really a good conversation. It came down to her telling me I was only saying what I was saying because I was a man.
Anyway, she also mentioned something along the lines of what Porter said. She has had friends that gave up children for adoption and it apparently caused them a great deal of emotional trauma to know that their children were out there in the world.
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quote:Do you think that offering the procedure to a woman who would have an abortion no matter what could be considered the lesser of two evils? Instead of automatically causing death, at least there is some effort to save the child. The woman asking for an abortion would also sign away all parental rights.
There are many, many adoptive parents out there looking only for babies. They wait for years on lists. I don't think finding parents for the children would be a problem.
I don't have a problem with offering the procedure. I do have a problem with developing it, because of the trial and error issues related to the death of the experimental subjects. And it's not just death - I'm sure some will be brought to term with serious conditions caused by such devices before they are perfected.
It's akin to saying we could cure cancer if only we could vivisect 100 cancer patients first.
Sure, in a pure numbers game it's worth it. But not in a moral sense.
posted
That always makes me shake my head. It causes them more trauma that they gave someone a life than that they killed a child because they didn't want it.
I've known someone with an abortion who was extremely traumatized about it. She wished over and over that she'd kept the pregnancy and given the child up.
So where does that leave us?
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posted
Dag, if we're going to assume that the volunteers for the experimental phase are going to have an abortion anyways, what's the risk? Some babies saved is better than none. At the very least, holding off research now would only punish future generations. Look, we as pro-life advocates have to understand something, we are still not in power. Unfortunately, we don't have the bargaining power even with a Bush presidency. We have to essentially take what we can get.
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posted
If we're that out of power, then my opinion won't stop it from getting developed. And if we're in power enough to stop it, then we're in power enough to illegalize abortion.
My opposition to abortion comes from a single, simple premise: at the moment of conception, a new human being, fully endowed with personhood, comes into being. For me to be consistent with that premise, I have to be unwilling to allow medical experiments that will result in death and serious bodily harm to be conducted upon them.
posted
Most trial and error issues, I assume, would occur with animals way before any attempt would be made with humans. And like I said, human trials would only occur with the embryos of women who would refuse the pregnancy no matter what.
Ahh, but here does come your most sticky point: Just because such a womb would bring the child to term safely doesn't mean the child coming out of it would be healthy. There could be a lot of harmful effects from being gestated in this way before solutions to problems were found.
But what if the risk were very little? There are two technologies right now that I think could make the development of this less cumbersome in a hundred or so years. Biotechnology, genetics, and nanotechnology are very hot fields right now. I see a point where we could know how to do this without much actual trial and error.
Research that would need to occur:
Continuous monitoring of hormones in the blood from weeks before conception to weeks after delivery. Possible probably only by microscopic samplers and transmitters residing in the mother's bloodstream.
Monitoring of uterine environment during same time frame. Same technology as before but with an addition. I think we'll need some visual monitoring here, on both a microscopic and macroscopic level.
Replication of what we find.
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quote:Dag, if we're going to assume that the volunteers for the experimental phase are going to have an abortion anyways, what's the risk? Some babies saved is better than none.
I think the point Dag is getting at is, what about those who survive the AW, but are worse for it?
quote:So where does that leave us?
People play the what if game all the time. With children it just happens to raise the stakes. I'm not answering your question, but simply commenting that this problem has no silver bullet solution.
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Continuous monitoring of hormones in the blood from weeks before conception to weeks after delivery. Possible probably only by microscopic samplers and transmitters residing in the mother's bloodstream.
Monitoring of uterine environment during same time frame. Same technology as before but with an addition. I think we'll need some visual monitoring here, on both a microscopic and macroscopic level.
Replication of what we find.
I have no problem with any of that, assuming informed consent, IRB approval, etc. But I doubt anyone would think we could create such a device and expect it to be at all reliable the first time it's used on a human being.
I am concerned that people seem to think that the result of a disabled child being born from this is somehow worse than the child dying in-pseudo-utero, but maybe that's just because I'm not willing to look at the death from abortion as the equivalent incident as the death from experimentation.
posted
While I think an artificial womb would be a wonderful developement, I don't view it as a 100% replacement for abortion.
And I don't like the idea of raising millions of children on tax payer money. Because if was offered, people WOULD use it as birth control. It doesn't even carry the guilt and stigma of abortion.
Imagine all the children who have been aborted (alive, yes, wonderful) but who are now living on the dole? And scarred for life having not grown up in a family?
quote: It's akin to saying we could cure cancer if only we could vivisect 100 cancer patients first.
Sure, in a pure numbers game it's worth it. But not in a moral sense.
Unless the cancer patients choose to undergo the procedure.
I realize that the infants can't make that choice.
But are parents allowed to decide for their children whether the children will undergo risky medical procedures?
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posted
Risky, yes, but not if there's no hope of benefit from it. And the benefit to the children would only come from the parent's pre-existing desire to abort the child, so I don't count that as a benefit.
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posted
Well, yeah. It doesn't make sense to give the guy with the gun the option of breaking kneecaps instead.
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quote:I am concerned that people seem to think that the result of a disabled child being born from this is somehow worse than the child dying in-pseudo-utero, but maybe that's just because I'm not willing to look at the death from abortion as the equivalent incident as the death from experimentation.
It's certainly less final than an abortion. With an abortion, the fetus is dead. If the child were somehow damaged by an artifical womb, but survived, I think that would be much more painful to the parents on a day-to-day basis.
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posted
I can see the continuous monitoring devices occuring on a far different track than as a precurser to artificial wombs.
There are lots of conditions we could find the cure for if we could only have continuous data about the chemical and biological state of the blood and organs.
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quote:And I don't like the idea of raising millions of children on tax payer money. ... Imagine all the children who have been aborted (alive, yes, wonderful) but who are now living on the dole?
I don't think this would be a big problem. As was stated before, that is a big desire for adoptable babies. If people could adopt the baby starting at birth, millions of people would jump at the chance.
Whether there would be enough people wanting to adopt *all* of the no-aborted babies, I don't know. But by no means would it be all of them.
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quote:It's certainly less final than an abortion. With an abortion, the fetus is dead. If the child were somehow damaged by an artifical womb, but survived, I think that would be much more painful to the parents on a day-to-day basis.
What about the child? Once he or she is old enough to understand, do you think they'll be glad to know that the mere fact they exist is considered the worst outcome? That not existing was the preferred result?
posted
Well, Annie and I are both female, Mormon, and we wear glasses. I guess we also both like Orson Scott Card. Not a bad person to be mistaken for Posts: 3495 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Imagine all the children who have been aborted (alive, yes, wonderful) but who are now living on the dole? And scarred for life having not grown up in a family?
Pix, I don't understand what you're talking about here. Could you link to some stories about such children? Considering how hard it is to adopt a newborn baby in the US, I don't understand how an attempted abortion that resulted in live birth could end up growing up without a family. Unless there were very serious birth defects. Which would mean they'd be on public assistance all their lives anyway.
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posted
I like the idea of saving unborn lives...but I don't think an artificial womb could adequately replace the real one. There is also the possibility that if one was developed, there would be some pressure on women with wanted pregnancies to gestate them artificially.....some scientists would love the idea of constantly monitoring every pregnancy.
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quote:What about the child? Once he or she is old enough to understand, do you think they'll be glad to know that the mere fact they exist is considered the worst outcome? That not existing was the preferred result?
I wasn't arguing the position, or at least not very hard . I don't know what the child would think, nor do I have any basis for speculation. I have some experience with parents though, and I know that if thier child were damaged by their decision, it would be a source of pain.
Posts: 903 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I don't like the idea of it being available because then, as dpr said, there would be pressure on people with wanted pregnancies to use it. What employer wouldn't prefer his employee gestate artificially, so there are none of those pesky doctor's appointments and other things that cause her to miss work so much?
If we want people to be more responsible, and not get pregnant in the first place, there need to be consequences. So, while I'd support the idea of an aritifical womb if it prevented abortions (though I think there are too many inherent problems with the idea to make it totally workable) I think the parents should be the ones to pay for the child if it's not adopted.
Note I said parents, not mother. Babies aren't conceived alone. The men involved should also be forced to bear some of the cost. The parents should pay child support until the kid is 18.
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quote: Pix, I don't understand what you're talking about here. Could you link to some stories about such children? Considering how hard it is to adopt a newborn baby in the US, I don't understand how an attempted abortion that resulted in live birth could end up growing up without a family. Unless there were very serious birth defects. Which would mean they'd be on public assistance all their lives anyway.
From what I understand there is a shortage of White babies and an even larger shortage of white MALE babies. But there is an excess of non-white babies, especially non-white, female babies.
Now I can't link anything to this. This is what I've heard and I haven't done any research on it.
Ok, here's a link from an organization promoting adoption over abortion. Even they admit there's a problem.
Actually, there are enough couples wanting these babies, but, sadly, they frequently aren’t adopted. Reasons include unwillingness of the natural mother to release the child, unrealistically high standards for minority parents to meet in order to qualify, and unwillingness of agencies to allow white parents to adopt them.
E. Lee, "White Couples’ Obstacles to Adopt Nonwhites," Wall Street Journal, Feb. 27, 1987
Black people make up 12% of the population in the U.S., but 42% of the children in foster care are black. There are 450,000 in foster care, of whom 42% (or 189,000) are black. In an industrialized state, about two-thirds of children awaiting adoption are black, e.g., in Cincinnati 84 of 87 such children were black.
Cincinnati Enquirer, Gregg, May 9, 1996
From that same site... Imagine the glut on the "adoption market" if 1.5 million new babies a year were thrown into the mix? How many minority babies would be adopted then?
quote: How many babies are adopted?
4% of non-marital births are placed for adoption. In the U.S. this is about 50,000 non-related adoptions a year compared to 1,500,000 babies aborted.
posted
Dagonee -- I tend to agree with you regarding consequentialism. However, it would be possible to develop this device in what I feel is a morally reasonable fashion.
Basically, there are some instances where using such a device would be the only alternative which offered a decent possibility of keeping the mother and the child alive. For instances, those pregnancies which are judged to constitute a very high risk to the life of the mother.
If the development of such a device were conducted with testing only occurring in such situations until the device were considered to have a comparable risk to modern childbirth techniques, I would support its development.
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We haven't really addressed the fact that we already have 'experiment or let the baby die' procedures when it comes to premature babies.
A device that more closely resembles an artificial womb would raise their chances of life and reduce disabilities would certainly be an improvement over current technology. There is already much damage done in trying to save their lives, but it can't be helped. It is either risk the damage or let the child die.
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