How artificial wombs will change our ideas of gender, family and equality | Aarathi Prasad
by Aarathi Prasad from on (#2MY9Q)
Science has shown what's possible with lamb foetuses. For humans this could revolutionise birth, solving inequalities and raising new ethical dilemmas
In 1924 the evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane coined the term ectogenesis to describe pregnancy in humans provided through an artificial womb. Haldane imagined that artificial wombs might become so popular by 2074 that only a small minority - fewer "than 30% of children" - would then "be born of woman".
In one sense, the journey to ectogenesis had already started in 1880, when the French obstetrician Etienne Sti(C)phane Tarnier built a crude incubator - essentially a wooden box for infants, outfitted with a compartment to hold a hot-water bottle. Tarnier's simple box reduced the mortality of premature babies by nearly a half, but his design did not become much more technologically sophisticated until the 1950s.
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