Ectogestative Technology and the Beginning of Life

Lily Eva Frank, Julia Hermann, Llona Kavege, Anna Puzio

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
96 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

How could ectogestative technology disrupt gender roles, parenting practices, and concepts such as “birth”, “body”, or “parent”? In this chapter, we situate this emerging technology in the context of the history of reproductive technologies, and analyse the potential social and conceptual disruptions to which it could contribute. An ectogestative device, better known as “artificial womb”, enables the extra-uterine gestation of a human being, or mammal more generally. It is currently developed with the main goal to improve the survival chances of extremely premature neonates. We argue that the intended use of the technology in neonatal intensive care units, as an alternative to current incubators (“partial- ectogestation”), challenges concepts such as “birth”, “fetus”, and “neonate”, and has several ethico-legal implications. We moreover address a more futuristic scenario where the entire embryological and fetal development could happen within an artificial womb (“full-ectogestation”). Such a scenario reveals the disruption of gender roles, parenting practices, and concepts such as “mother”, “father”, and “parent”. Both full- and partial-ectogestation would have implications for engineering and design, law-making, ethics, and philosophical anthropology.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEthics of Socially Disruptive Technologies
Subtitle of host publicationAn Introduction
EditorsIbo van de Poel, Lily Frank, Julia Hermann, Jeroen Hopster, Dominic Lenzi, Sven Nyholm, Behnam Taebi, Elena Ziliotti
Place of PublicationCambridge, UK
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Chapter5
Pages113-140
Number of pages28
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-80511-057-6, 978-1-80064-987-3, 978-1-80511-050-7, 978-1-78374-789-4
ISBN (Print)978-1-80511-016-3, 978-1-80511-017-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 5 Sept 2023

Keywords

  • technology
  • society
  • artificial wombs
  • climate engineering
  • social media
  • social robots
  • artificial intelligence

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  • Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies: An Introduction

    van de Poel, I. (Editor), Frank, L. E. (Editor), Hermann, J. (Editor), Hopster, J. (Editor), Lenzi, D. (Editor), Nyholm, S. (Editor), Taebi, B. (Editor) & Ziliotti, E. (Editor), 5 Sept 2023, Open Book Publishers. 186 p.

    Research output: Book/ReportBookAcademic

    Open Access
    File
    6 Citations (Scopus)
    44 Downloads (Pure)

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