The Guardian reports that Dutch researchers have been awarded a €2.9 million grant to develop a prototype artificial uterus. Though artificial uteri have several benefits, they also raise a multitude of ethical questions.
5 thoughts on “Artificial wombs progress”
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Indeed. The damage done to the brain in the time of transfer could be telling.
That is one of the things that should be researched.
…and that raises another set of ethical nightmares.
An interesting development, but it does drive home how difficult making artificial wombs work is going to be…2.9 million euros for a *prototype* of a womb that can support premature babies (not starting out from the beginning, i.e implantation of a zygote). We’ve got quite a long way to go before such a technology is widely available and practical, to say the least.
There are two trends: on one side we can keep embryos alive in a petri dish for a longer time. On the other, we can keep fetuses/premature babies alive at earlier stages of gestation. If those two trends continue, they might eventually meet each other.
The question is, however, if these trends will continue and yes, there are lot of questions that need to be solved.