Summary:
This is a very succinct look at ectogenesis ("ecto" meaning outside and "genesis" meaning creation). Ectogenesis is the term currently being used to describe a budding technology in which an unborn embryo completes its nine-month gestation in a location outside its mother´s womb. The article discusses the current state of the research as well as some of the ethical and philosophical issues that might appear in the future if the trend toward this technology continues.

Details or Sample:
For the sake of brevity, I´m not going to include in this history anything that occurred before the year 2000, however, it should be noted that the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in England in 1978 and that Dolly, the cloned Scottish sheep, came into existence in 1996. Now here are the recent achievements, in no particular order:

1. The somewhat controversial biotech company, Advanced Cell Technology, has found a way to skirt current stem cell laws by drawing stem cells that can be used for cloning directly from amniotic fluid. They have also been able to extract stem cells from live embryos without causing any harm.

2. Dr. Guiseppe Del Priore of New York Downtown Hospital is working towards removing the womb from a dead organ donor and transplanting it into a live woman, after which she would have to take heavy-hitting immuno-suppressive drugs to keep the womb from being rejected. After completing her child-bearing plans, the womb would be removed from the woman and the drugs stopped.

3. In 2002, doctors in Saudi Arabia did perform the transplant of a uterus from one woman to another. Although they had practiced successfully in other animals first, the human trial had to be terminated and the womb removed after 99 days due to blood clots.

4. Dr. Hung-Ching Liu of Cornell University has removed uterine cells and relocated them to a womb-shaped structure in the laboratory. Treating the structure with hormones to induce continued growth, the uterine cells eventually take over and the scaffold can be removed, leaving behind a functioning, artificial uterus.

5. Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara of Japan´s Juntendo University has created a chamber containing a warm, amniotic fluid-like substance and has successfully incubated a 17-week-old goat fetus in this environment, delivering the animal in good health after a three-week stay.

6. Scientists in California, Iowa, Spain and China have had success with cross-species gestation, for example, implanting ibex embryos in goat wombs and then seeing them carried to term and delivered normally. There has also been experimentation in creating embryonic hybrids, such as a laboratory-combined DNA crosses of goats and sheep.

Now, the debate:

1. Are women, as some feminists would argue, oppressed by their naturally-appointed role as the bringers of life?

2. If a woman could put her unborn child in a containment unit outside her body for the nine months that previously would have been her pregnancy, would it free her up to compete better with men in the workplace? Would the workplace strike deals with women that would enable them to rise higher on the corporate ladder if they agreed not to carry their own children in pregnancy?

3. Would the corporate world withdraw maternity leave and other benefits, finding it unnecessary since the baby could gestate elsewhere?

4. Using in-vitro fertilization, would we use stem cells to create the child of one who had been aborted? How far would we go with this technology? Perhaps we could save a stem cell from an aborted baby and have a duplicate of the child at a later time that the mother felt was more appropriate. Maybe we could even freeze the unwanted embryo in it´s current development state and save it for later, too.

5. The obvious cloning questions that movies like The Island seek to put out there -- would we grow "spare-parts" counterparts to ourselves that we could use to replace our diseased or worn-out organs? Organ donating has already found a home on the black market -- how would we stop this from finding one too?

6. Attachment and close physical contact with the mother in infancy has been shown to be vitally important to the survival and health of a baby. Is it necessary pre-natally, too?

7. Would evil dictators use stem cells and ectogenesis to clone and raise armies or slaves for their own purposes?

8. Would women who had been previously unable to carry an infant to term now have that opportunity after all? How safe would it be? Would it be a heartbreak waiting to happen? Might there be long-term consequences for the child?

9. Would it become the norm for babies to gestate elsewhere? Would we come to insist that women with potentially dangerous medical issues not be allowed to carry their own babies or that women with histories of drug abuse, drinking or exposure to environmental hazards gestate their babies elsewhere? How far would we go with this? Would a woman who, say, lived with someone who tended to drink too much and become violent, have her child taken from her by the local branch of social services before it was even born? Could the laws pertaining to these issues be constructed in such a way as to not be oppressive and invasive?

10. Would insurance companies, looking at the dangers and expenses of childbirth, cease to provide maternity coverage to women who chose to go a full nine months and give birth naturally?

11. One sociologist, Robyn Rowland, who believes that the ability to have a baby gives women some bit of leverage over men, writes "We may find ourselves (women) without a product of any kind with which to bargain. We have to ask, if that last power is taken and controlled by men, what role is envisaged for women in the new world? Will women become obsolete?" (in Rosen, 2004). Personally, I think this idea is ludicrous and hateful. How about just an ounce of faith in men here -- and oh yeah, women too!

12. Will this enable men to choose to have a womb installed in their bodies and to carry their own baby to term? Would then it become a marital decision -- who will carry the baby? Would same-sex male couples be able to have a baby the old-fashioned way?

13. With the technology of ectogenesis in place, a baby would be viable from the moment of conception. Would this end the abortion debate or make it worse? Who would be responsible for unwanted babies taken from the wombs of their mothers and not claimed by an adoptive parent? Would this sudden birth swell help to suspend the plummeting reproductive rates in developed countries? (Could it, hypothetically, save the Social Security Administration from the Baby Boomer crisis or similar situations in the future?)

14. Would the privacy rights of a pregnant mother be sacrificed for the constitutional rights of a developing fetus? In sticky situations, whose rights would win out? To quote from Wendy McElroy´s article, "Can two ´human beings´ -- a fetus and the pregnant woman -- claim control over the same body? When does an individual with rights come into existence?"

15. Though it might be best to steer clear of the myriad religious issues that would spin off this technology, I think the following two questions provide some indication of how deep a mess that could be. First, beginning with in-vitro fertilization and including reproduction through the use of stem cells (cloning) as well as ectogenesis, does a lab-created human have a soul and if not, what constitutes the difference between lab- and human-created people? Second, to borrow from Monty Python, will every sperm (and ovum) become truly sacred due to potential viability in a lab?

16. It would prove a life-saving technology for premature babies and others with medical issues. What if there was some undetected yet totally destructive malady that didn´t appear until the ectogenic child was in his or her teens? What devastation that would cause to so many people! Is it fair and worth the risk to try this with real people?

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