Abortion & artificial wombs

[Solauren]

Implications I can think of off hand;

#1- A baby unwanted by the biological mother could be taken in by the biological father. This is the one point I've always been 'fencer sitter' on. I agree that the final choice is with the woman in question, but I feel bad for the guy. This would solve both points to a degree.

#2 - Completely unwanted babies could still go to concerned or interested parties (i.e grandparents, adoption, etc), without forcing the mother to carry a baby to term (something I'm against forcing a mother to do).

#3- Survival rate for infants goes up. Things like the mother dying or becoming unable to carry the child are now a matter of 'can we get the kid transferred in time?'

#4 - Combine with genetic engineering for acelerated growth, this would make colonizing other star systems much more feasible. Keep embryo's in storage, 'fire them up', birth them, let them grow (while robots educate them), and tada - breeding humans, with a significant reduction in required resources.

#5 - Multiple births are now safer. Instead of carrying twins+ to term and having them have to share space, that could be placed into artificial wombs and allowed to gestate with more room to spare.

#6 - Problematic pregnancies are now negated. If a pregnancy is taking it's tole on a mother, the baby could be transferred for the mom to recover.

There could be some nasty side effects, however
#1 - Custody fighting; Imagine a divorce where the father demands the child be removed from the mother and placed into an artificial womb for the child's safety? Can you imagine trying to enforce that, regardless of evidence to support it?

#2 - Human mass production; Can we say potiental Clone Army?

#3 - Multiple simultanious irresponsible pregnancies.
Imagine this scenario; Teenager gets pregnant, baby gets moved. 2 months later, Teenager gets pregnant again. Repeat as required.

[ray245]

The problem of overpopulation will present itself to a huge extend in this scenario. Will people ignore the safe sex advice, if their only concern about sex is pregnancy?

What happens when Teenagers think that we don't need to use contraceptives, because their baby will be adopted eventually?

[Mayabird]

The problem of overpopulation will present itself to a huge extent in this scenario. Will people ignore the safe sex advice [comma was unnecessary] if their only concern about sex is pregnancy?

What happens when teenagers think that they don't need to use contraceptives, because their baby will be adopted eventually?

Corrections made, and trust me when I say that you're still better at writing English than my classmates in Georgia.

Anywho, why would their only concern be pregnancy? Uterine replicators don't magically eliminate STDs. There are still plenty of nasties to worry about.

Overpopulation is already a problem. The transfer process is still going to be a huge hassle, a big surgical procedure the same as abortion (aside from the very early chemical method) is today. Nobody wants to go through this hassle. It's something people do now because they're backed into a corner, not actually something women do by habit (as some insinuate). This process is going to be expensive, so unless someone else is covering it, these poor women (it's mostly people in poverty and young women who don't have established funding who get abortions, after all) aren't going to opt for it. Adoption is also available now if the hypothetical teens get knocked up. This doesn't change anything at all. Nothing.


If this technology could be used for other species I could see a great use for repopulating endangered species. Grow multiple pandas or tigers or whatever instead of having to wait one at a time for a female to go through the entire pregnancy. But that's beyond the scope of this scenario.

[Solauren]

Actually, endangered species repopulation should be considered in this scenario, as usage for both animals + humans could have an impact on the regulation of use.

Consider this; it could be possible now for someone to try hybriding animals + humans and grow the resulting embyro in secret.

[Junghalli]

Consider this; it could be possible now for someone to try hybriding animals + humans and grow the resulting embyro in secret.

You'd need a sophisticated genetics lab for something like that.

[GuppyShark]

Thankyou for the post Sol - there's some thought-provoking items on that list.

There could be some nasty side effects, however

#3 - Multiple simultanious irresponsible pregnancies.
Imagine this scenario; Teenager gets pregnant, baby gets moved. 2 months later, Teenager gets pregnant again. Repeat as required.

Ouch.

You could get some interesting demographic shifts - currently couples that really, really want a boy/girl will keep having children if they don't get what they want the first time. Now compress that into a matter of weeks instead of years.

Anywho, why would their only concern be pregnancy? Uterine replicators don't magically eliminate STDs. There are still plenty of nasties to worry about.

Were pregnancy not a factor at all, then insisting on safe sex practices would be seen as an insult. "Don't you trust me?"

However, even with the artificial wombs, pregnancy would be no less serious a situation and not worth the risk. My first reaction was that the use of contraceptives and similar safe sex tools would decrease, but I think only complete idiots would go down that path.

Overpopulation is already a problem.

Not everywhere. Australia is going to have a serious problem when the baby boomers all retire and we're left with insufficient population to support them.

The transfer process is still going to be a huge hassle, a big surgical procedure the same as abortion (aside from the very early chemical method) is today. Nobody wants to go through this hassle. It's something people do now because they're backed into a corner, not actually something women do by habit (as some insinuate). This process is going to be expensive, so unless someone else is covering it, these poor women (it's mostly people in poverty and young women who don't have established funding who get abortions, after all) aren't going to opt for it.

Teleros addressed this in the original post,

but ideally it would be cheap enough that most women could use artificial wombs if they wanted. Obviously, artificial wombs so expensive only the richest in society can use them... rather detracts from the whole point of this topic.

Adoption is also available now if the hypothetical teens get knocked up. This doesn't change anything at all. Nothing.

How is the possibility of avoiding nine months of pregnancy 'nothing' by any reckoning? Women already undergo voluntary ceasarians to avoid or control childbirth, we're talking about skipping the entire thing.

[EarthScorpion]

You could get some interesting demographic shifts - currently couples that really, really want a boy/girl will keep having children if they don't get what they want the first time. Now compress that into a matter of weeks instead of years.

Not only that. I would find it very plausible that the number of non-identical "twins" would increase. Consider the possibility that a parent might want to minimise the amount of time they have a young child around, to cut down on the amount of time they spend out of the labour market, and other such concerns. I think that there would be a non-negligible number of parents who might get two embryos; one male, one female fertilised, and grown at the same time in separate artificial wombs (thus avoiding most of the problems with conventional twins that result from them competing for the same resources in the same womb), and then decanted at the same time, and raised as non identical twins.

That actually would have some really interesting demographic effects. For one, it would probably make the children/couple ratio approach 2 from either direction; people who only have a single child now can have two, while on the other side the selection of one of each gender means that there wouldn't be as much "trying for a girl this time", plus there may be encouragement to restrict yourself to two offspring.

And that would actually be a) a rather interesting setting, and b) a really interesting effect on real life. Classes of children who fit into nice sibling pairs, the clumping effect that would emerge in intake, and the pronounced tendency for twin-like behaviour among a noticeable percentage of the population.