Why? It appears both men and women are now redundant.
Welcome to the Brave New World.
observer.co.uk
Men redundant? Now we don't
need women either
Scientists have developed an artificial womb that allows
embryos to grow outside the body
Talk about it here
Robin McKie
Sunday February 10, 2002
The Observer
Doctors are developing artificial wombs in which embryos can
grow outside a woman's body. The work has been hailed as a
breakthrough in treating the childless.
Scientists have created prototypes made out of cells extracted
from women's bodies. Embryos successfully attached
themselves to the walls of these laboratory wombs and began to
grow. However, experiments had to be terminated after a few
days to comply with in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) regulations.
'We hope to create complete artificial wombs using these
techniques in a few years,' said Dr Hung-Ching Liu of Cornell
University's Centre for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility.
'Women with damaged uteruses and wombs will be able to have
babies for the first time.'
The pace of progress in the field has startled experts. Artificial
wombs could end many women's childbirth problems - but they
also raise major ethical headaches which will be debated at a
major international conference titled 'The End of Natural
Motherhood?' in Oklahoma next week.
'There are going to be real problems,' said organiser Dr Scott
Gelfand, of Oklahoma State University. 'Some feminists even
say artificial wombs mean men could eliminate women from the
planet and still perpetuate our species. That's a bit alarmist.
Nevertheless, this subject clearly raises strong feelings.'
Liu's work involves removing cells from the endometrium, the
lining of the womb. 'We have learnt how to grow these cells in
the laboratory using hormones and growth factors,' she said.
After this Liu and her colleagues grew layers of these cells on
scaffolds of biodegradable material which had been modelled
into shapes mirroring the interior of the uterus. The cells grew
into tissue and the scaffold dissolved. Then nutrients and
hormones such as oestrogen were added to the tissue.
'Finally, we took embryos left over from IVF programmes and put
these into our laboratory engineered tissue. The embryos
attached themselves to the walls of our prototype wombs and
began to settle there.'
The experiments were halted after six days. However, Liu now
plans to continue with this research and allow embryos to grow
in the artificial wombs for 14 days, the maximum permitted by
IVF legislation. 'We will then see if the embryos put down roots
and veins into our artificial wombs' walls, and see if their cells
differentiate into primitive organs and develop a primitive
placenta.'
The immediate aim of this work is to help women whose
damaged wombs prevent them from conceiving. An artificial
womb would be made from their own endometrium cells, an
embryo placed inside it, and allowed to settle and grow before
the whole package is placed back in her body.
'The new womb would be made of the woman's own cells. so
there would be no danger of organ rejection,' Liu added.
However, her research is currently limited by IVF legislation.
'The next stage will involve experiments with mice or dogs. If that
works, we shall ask to take our work beyond the 14-day limit
now imposed on such research.'
A different approach has been taken by Yoshinori Kuwabara at
Juntendo University in Tokyo. His team has removed foetuses
from goats and placed them in clear plastic tanks filled with
amniotic fluid stabilised at body temperature. In this way,
Kuwabara has kept goat foetuses alive and growing for up to 10
days by connecting their umbilical cords to machines that pump
in nutrients and dispose of waste.
While Liu's work is aimed at helping those having difficulty
conceiving, Kuwabara's is designed to help women who suffer
miscarriages or very premature births. In this way Liu is
extending the time an embryo can exist in a laboratory before
being placed in a woman's body; Kuwabara is trying to give a
foetus a safe home if expelled too early from its natural womb.
Crucially, both believe artificial wombs capable of sustaining a
child for nine months will become reality in a few years.
'Essentially research is moving towards the same goal but from
opposite directions,' UK fertility expert Dr Simon Fishel, of Park
Hospital, Nottingham, said. 'Getting them to meet in the middle
will not be easy, however. There are so many critical stages of
pregnancy, and so many factors to get right. Nevertheless, this
work is very exciting.'
It also has serious ethical implications, as Gelfand pointed out.
'For a start, there is the issue of abortion. A woman is usually
allowed to have one on the grounds she wants to get rid of
something alien inside her own body.
'At present, this means killing the foetus. But if artificial wombs
are developed, the foetus could be placed in one, and the
woman told she has to look after it once it has developed into a
child.'
In addition, if combined with cloning technology, artificial wombs
raise the prospect that gay couples could give 'birth' to their own
children. 'This would no doubt horrify right-wingers, while the
implications for abortion law might well please them,' he added.
Gelfand also warned that artificial wombs could have unexpected
consequences for working women and health insurance. 'They
would mean that women would no longer need maternity leave -
which employers could become increasingly reluctant to give.
'It may also turn out that artificial wombs provide safer
environments than natural wombs which can be invaded by
drugs and alcohol from a mother's body. Health insurance
companies could actually insist that women opt for the artificial
way.
'Certainly, this is going to raise a lot of tricky problems.'
So now you can fire your husband. And yourself. |
