Final Report (all chapters)

As for many other medical technologies, experiments involving ectogenetic chambers have
been conducted with a narrow therapeutic goal in mind. In this case, scientists had hoped to save
the lives of extremely premature babies and to help women with uterine malformations to
become pregnant. The possible applications of an ectogenetic chamber do not stop here,
however. Once this technology has been fully developed, some perfectly healthy women may
find it attractive to avoid the hassles and the pains, not to mention the forced temporary
retirement, associated with pregnancy by “outsourcing” it to a machine. Women may not be the
only ones to find this option attractive. The availability of ectogenetic chambers may induce
business firms to adopt policies that strongly encourage their female employees to accept
artificial pregnancies. Health insurance companies may find an artificial pregnancy more costeffective
and less risky than a natural one. An entirely artificial gestation could also have a
dramatic impact on the abortion debate. A key argument of the pro-choice camp – that the state
cannot impose on women the physical and emotional burdens associated with an unwanted
pregnancy – would suddenly be removed from the equation. 83
Also of considerable import are possible risks to the health and well-being of the babies.
These risks are all but unknown, but they may well be significant. For example, we know that
fetuses respond to the mother’s heartbeat and to her emotions. Can we really dispense with these
subtle but perhaps critical interactions? One may also wonder whether an artificial pregnancy
would weaken the bond between mother and child. How can we be so sure that we will be able to
redesign in just a few years what took nature millions of years to create and perfect? Even if we
could accomplish this feat, should this practice be indulged or even encouraged for the sake of
avoiding stretch marks, weight gain, and overall inconvenience? Is economic efficiency reason
enough for tolerating this practice? Is this technology really liberating, as some feminists no
doubt will claim? Or should it rather be viewed as a particularly perverse attempt by a maledominated
society to marginalize women?
It is neither our intention nor our desire to provide definitive answers to these questions.
More important to the present discussion is the observation that the broad availability of
ectogenetic chambers is likely to spark a variety of applications, ranging from the purely
therapeutic to the dubious and the downright unacceptable. And as for other scientific and
medical developments discussed in this report, only a regulatory agency would have both the
expertise and the legitimacy to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable uses of this
technology.
4.5.5 Hybrids and Chimeras
Their vaguely menacing names notwithstanding, we are all familiar with hybrids and
chimeras. A hybrid is simply the result of the fertilization of one species’ egg with another
species’ sperm. Mules, the offspring of a female horse and a male donkey, are a classic example.
In Greek mythology, a chimera is a monstrous animal with the head of a lion, the body of a goat,
83
Zimmerman, "Fetal Position: The Real Threat to Roe V. Wade."
105