A Commentary of The National Catholic Bioethics Center on Health Care and the Life Sciences has followed, scientists have been actively competing to ARNINGS ON defy nature and successfully create the world’s first child W via an artificial womb—with little consideration of the ARTIFICIAL WOMBS ethical consequences. Ethical Dilemmas The use of artificial wombs risks undermining our As birth control has become more widely accepted, so understanding of motherhood and, by extension, parent- has the idea that sex could be separated from procre- hood. We learn from both Scripture and science that the ation. Assisted reproductive technologies, such as egg womb is a sacred space. Natural maternal–child bonding and sperm donation and surrogate motherhood, have is affirmed by medical experts as essential to promoting made it possible to have children without engaging in the health of mother and child. The nine-month gestational the conjugal act. Now, if some scientists have their way, period is a time in which an essential trust is established the practice of ectogenesis will allow for the creation of between the two individuals, not merely through emo- children entirely separate from the womb and outside tions, but through biochemistry and the exchange of of the human body. certain hormones.5 This bond is permanent and is felt in In 1924, J. B. S. Haldane, at the time a professor of bio- both the mother and child for the rest of their lives. The use chemistry at Trinity College, Cambridge, coined the word of artificial wombs would intentionally sever this bond, ectogenesis (from the Greek words ecto for “outer” and and the consequences of such a radical activity would be genesis for “beginning” or “generation”) to describe what impossible to foretell. 1 he predicted to be the future of reproduction. Haldane Moreover, ectogenesis would very likely aid in the thought that by 2074 less than 30 percent of births would social quest to reduce the importance of the two-parent, be natural, human births. More recently, transhuman- mother-and-father tie to their child and in some cases ist activist Zoltan Istvan, along with other researchers, could introduce multiple parties into the parenting pro- predicted that “ectogenesis will be here in 20 years, and cess. By rendering the womb an arbitrary location, 2 widely used in 30 years around the world.” ectogenesis risks rendering biological ties unnecessary. While Haldane and Istvan have hailed the develop- The rise of gamete donation and surrogacy has already ment as great progress for science and women alike, it intentionally separated children from their biologi- raises serious questions about the well-being of the chil- cal origins, and ectogenesis would only further aid in dren that would be conceived via artificial wombs, the normalizing this process. Whereas children were once meaning of motherhood, the continued commodification linked to their parents via the conjugal act, ectogenesis of the human life, and the increased likelihood of deep- would allow for the possibility that two unconnected rooted eugenics. individuals could decide to make a child to their liking, The mechanics of ectogenesis, while relying on highly independent of any type of marital fidelity or long-term sophisticated technology, is pretty straightforward. Istvan commitment to one another or their child. Moreover, if writes, “Basically, it appears as an amniotic fluid-filled the creation of children is reduced to mere contracts and aquarium with a bunch of feeding tubes and monitoring laboratory experimentation, the two-parent standard cables attached to a live, developing organism. Those becomes an arbitrary norm. The floodgates would then tubes bring the nutrients, oxygen, etc. needed to grow an organism and help it survive; the cables monitor FEBRUARY 2015 VOLUME 40, NUMBER 2 everything going on inside the tank.” 3 In recent years, the push for ectogenesis has largely been championed by researchers in Japan and China through experimenta- WARNINGS ON ARTIFICIAL WOMBS tion with animals and human embryos alike. While their UNDERMINING THE IDEA OF PARENTHOOD advancements were limited, the movement was given Christopher White great hope when Hung-Ching Liu at Cornell University created an artificial uterus where an embryo successfully CONFUSION ABOUT SEX AND GENDER implanted. At a 2001 conference she noted, “The embryo grows very happily and very healthy.” 4 She allowed the SOLUTIOns TO TWO COMPLEX PROBLEMS original embryo to grow for six days but noted she had Edward J. Furton plans to allow them to develop longer. In the decade that DEFENDING THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON IN HEALTH CARE AND THE LIFE SCIENCES SINCE 1972 ETHICS & MEDICS FEBRUARY 2015 be open to multiple parents without any logical standard and partial ectogenesis. Complete ectogenesis entails for limitations. what has been described here as an effort to intentionally For those utilizing such technologies, it is likely to create a child using an artificial womb from the outset be an expensive process, and those paying for these ser- of conception. Partial ectogenesis, however, would allow vices will most assuredly seek to create the child of their for “the continued development of an already generated choosing. This will result in an attempt to create designer human fetus transferred from a maternal womb to an 10 children through the selection of preferred sperm and artificial womb” to present an alternative to abortion or eggs. This, too, will incentivize a greater push for the to save the life of the fetus or the mother during a high- buying and selling of eggs and sperm and an expansion risk pregnancy. Catholic moral philosopher Christopher of the market for gametes. In the thirty years since egg Kaczor has promoted this distinction as one possible and sperm donation has become highly commercialized, valid use of the technology that is still consonant with we already know that this market has institutionalized efforts ofDonum vitae and Centesimus annus to protect life high-risk, invasive medical procedures for women who at all stages and ensure that children are brought into sell their eggs.6 Furthermore, it has created a generation existence through environments of care and protection, of children who have been conceived without any access facilitated by the conjugal union of husband and wife. to their medical histories and in many cases suffer from The exception of partial ectogenesis seems to be a genealogical bewilderment.7 legitimate one under certain circumstances, though as Yet in this pursuit of perfection, the expectations of we have seen with the development of many reproduc- parents seeking to create their unflawed child will most tive technologies, the mere existence of the possibility of assuredly yield greater demands for abortion if the devel- their usage has led to a societal push for a full embrace of oping child proves to have abnormalities or is declared their implementation, with some even promoting them to be “defective.” After all, in such a system, the parents as a right. are mere purchasers of a product, and their product must As we are reminded in Donum vitae, “In the light of the meet their satisfaction. truth about the gift of human life and in the light of the Finally, for those seeking to create the right embryo moral principles which flow from that truth, everyone is using hand-picked sperm and eggs, this will almost invited to act in the area of responsibility proper to each.” 11 certainly result in the creation of multiple embryos. In The ethical considerations of ectogenesis show that we selecting the most desirable, parents are likely to use must be ever wary of and ever responsible in its usage—if preimplantation genetic diagnosis to screen for potential we are to promote its use at all. genetic disorders. Some have attempted to mask this as a kind or beneficent action, but it is plainly eugenic. Ecto- Christopher White genesis does not require multiple embryo implantation, so Christopher White is the director of research and education at the creation of multiple embryos will undoubtedly lead to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network in Pleasant Hill, a surplus that will have to be frozen, offered for scientific California. research, or destroyed. 1 J. B. S. Haldane, Daedalus or Science and the Future (New York: The Future of Reproduction Dutton, 1924). 2 Zoltan Istvan, “Artificial Wombs Are Coming, but the Contro- In Donum vitae—issued by the Congregation for the versy Is Already Here,” Motherboard, August 4, 2014, http:// Doctrine of the Faith in 1987 before ectogenesis seemed motherboard.vice.com/read/artificial-wombs-are-coming-and a real possibility—the Church warned that “attempts or -the-controversys-already-here. hypotheses for obtaining a human being without any 3 Ibid. 4 connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission,’ cloning Christine Rosen, “Why Not Artificial Wombs?,” New Atlantis 3 or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the (Fall 2003): 71. 5 Megan Galbally et al., “The Role of Oxytocin in Mother-Infant moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both Relations: A Systematic Review of Human Studies,” Harvard 8 of human procreation and of the conjugal union.” Pope Review of Psychiatry 19.1 (January 2011): 1–14. St. John Paul II in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus 6 Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of the added that “among the most important of these rights, National Academies, “Assessing the Medical Risks of Human mention must be made of the right to life, an integral part Oocyte Donation for Stem Cell Research: Workshop Report” of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother’s (2007). 7 Hillary B. Alberta, Roberta M. Berry, and Aaron D. Levine, “Risk womb from the moment of conception.” 9 From these two Disclosure and the Recruitment of Oocyte Donors: Are Adver- documents, it would seem that the Church’s opposition to tisers Telling the Full Story?,” Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics ectogenesis, while not explicitly stated, is quite obvious.